Can Some One Explain To Me How Jay Cutler Is an Elite Quarterback?

Why is Jay Cutler considered an elite quarterback? In the preseason all I ever heard from Bears fans was how Cutler was going to open up their offense with his strong arm, and that with his addition the Bears finally had a Super Bowl caliber team. Every thing seemed to be falling into place for Bears fans, then the regular season started, and the Bears under Cutler are just as inept on offense as they have been the last couple of decades.  

The Bears rank 16th in points scored, they average a mediocre 22.5 points a game. Not surprisingly, last year the Broncos under Cutler were also 16th in points scored, averaging 23.1 points a game. However, instead of looking at how mediocre the Broncos were under Cutler, they choose to look at his 2008 stats:  389/616 attempts, 62.3% completion, 4526 yds, 25 TD, 18 INT, 86.0 passer rating.  They were overly impressed by the fact that Cutler threw for over 4000 yards, ignoring the fact that a lot of Cutler's yards came against poor defenses, or in garbage time when the Broncos were trailing teams by a huge margin. They conveniently ignored the fact that while the Broncos offense could move the ball, they had trouble finding the end zone, mainly due to Cutler throwing his usual bone headed interceptions.  The 2009 Bears are very similar, Cutler puts up big numbers, but has trouble finding the end zone.  

Sunday's game against Arizona sums up Cutler's career perfectly, in that game Cutler went: 29/47 369 yds 3TD, 1 INT. Pretty impressive, right? WRONG! Most of Cutler's yards came after the Bears were trailing 34-7. At that point the Cardinals defense lost its aggressive edge and allowed Cutler to complete his passes.  

Cutler apologists make the excuse that he has no receivers in Chicago, which completely contradicts their argument in the preseason that Cutler was going to make Chicago's receivers better.  The whole point of bringing Cutler to Chicago was that he was going to give the Bears an added dimension that they had been lacking with their previous quarterbacks, not only would Bears now have a deep threat in the passing game, but their running game would benefit as well. Instead, the Bears running game is worse than ever, and their passing game is average at best.  In fact, Cutler is directly responsible for two of the Bears losses. Against a horrible Green Bay defense Cutler threw four interceptions, thus giving the Packers the game, and against the Falcons he threw two interceptions in the red zone.  

Yet despite all this, the media and Cutler fans are convinced he is an elite quarterback. Their proof: He was voted to the Pro Bowl in 2008. To which I say: So friggin' what! You know who else was voted to the Pro Bowl? Derek Anderson in 2007. As we all know he's had quite the stellar career ever since. Not to mention that Cutler did not deserve to be voted to the Pro-Bowl, considering that Philip Rivers put up better numbers, and actually lead his team to the play offs.  If Pro-Bowl voting began at the end of the season, instead of the midway point, chances are Cutler would not have been selected. 

Then they are people who claim that Cutler is a "top 5 Quarterback!" Again, where are they getting this from? Cutler doesn't even rank in the top 10, let alone the top 5.

Here's a list of QBs who have put up better numbers than Cutler:

Drew Brees

Peyton Manning

Brett Favre

Tom Brady

Tony Romo

Ben Roethlisberger

Aaron Rodgers

Donovan McNabb

Philip Rivers

Carson Palmer

Joe Flacco

Matt Schaub

Kurt Warner

Kyle Orton

even Eli Manning. 

That's 15 QBs who have a better passer rating the Cutler, yet to the deluded fan Cutler is better than most of them. How can this be? Not to mention the Bears schedule doesn't get any easier from here on out, expect Cutler to throw more interceptions and for his hardcore fans to make their usual excuses.