Monday Night Football: Best QB Jumps into Contention for Top QB in NFL

I feel a little ridiculous writing this because we are only two weeks into the season, but still, the Monday night football game between the Green Bay Packers and the Chicago Bears will decide more than just who has the edge in the NFC North.

It will also decide who is better between Jay Cutler and Aaron Rodgers.

Green Bay fans will say, “No matter what happens, Rodgers is the better QB. See: Playoffs!”

Which means that, yes, Rodgers has suited up for a playoff game. He didn’t win, and he also blew the game when Arizona Cardinals LB Karlos Dansby stripped him of the ball and ran it back in OT to win the game. But still, he has played a playoff game.

(And for those counting, Rodgers lost that game for GB no matter how you look at it. You get the ball first in OT in a playoff game, and you need to score. What? You need 40 or 50 yards for a field goal? If you want to be considered elite then you get the win.)

And for all intents and purposes, Jay Cutler was atrocious last season, lost a few games single-handily (San Francisco, anyone?), and nearly got his entire coaching staff fired (they ended up replacing the O-coordinator.)

But now we are talking about this season, and so far, Jay Cutler has been one of the top three quarterbacks in the league. He’s has been fantastic. I know, I know, Detroit’s defense isn’t exactly made up of Pro-Bowl players. But Dallas is very good defensively, and Cutler was able to slice his team threw them with little problem. This is the same Dallas team that kept the Washington offense without a touchdown a week before, so don’t say that they're soft. Chicago now has an offense and a quarterback that they can work with.

If Cutler has been remarkable, Aaron Rodgers has been good. He’s been decent. He hasn’t been “MVP–best freaking QB in the NFL good,” but he’s been fine. The GB offense put a couple scores on Philly, but Detroit scored 32 on Philly a week later with Shawn Hill running the ropes. Then the Packers played Buffalo and beat them soundly, but I wouldn’t call Rodgers’ performance noteworthy. If that was Manning or Brady behind center, the stat charts would have been blown to smithereens. Rodgers played fine.

Most people don’t want to admit this, but Cutler has completely improved on nearly every level. I know that most fans outside of Chicago don’t like him very much, but don’t ignore what he has done. He leads the league in QB rating, second in Touchdowns, third in yards, and only one INT. That’s pretty good for a guy who looked lost last season.

He is also doing it with an improved but not jaw-dropping wide receiving corp. Knox is fine; Hester is okay. There aren’t any Wayne’s or Fitzgerald’s or Moss’s on the team. Even if Cutler had a second tier guy like Greg Jennings it would be a huge improvement. Matt Forte provides a decent running game, and the Mike Martz system adheres to his skill set, but I wouldn’t say he’s one of the 10 most talented backs in the NFC (Okay, I’ll name ten: Peterson, Gore, McCoy, Best, Williams, Bradshaw, Turner, Thomas, Hightower, Wells, Jackson). Granted, he is better than Brandon Jackson (that was a tough break, but that doesn’t mean he’s elite.

Look at it this way: Monday night decides Cutler vs. Rodgers for the time being. This is a big stage. This is the biggest matchup between the two. Their first meeting last season was the first game of the year; their second was when the Bears had been eliminated. This is a game in which the winner has the inside shot of winning the NFC North. That’s called playoffs, baby.

And for a Green Bay team that was picked by most to get to at least the NFC Championship game, to lose to a team that most picked would never play a meaningful game in December...that’s huge.