Jay Cutler and a Young Brett Farve: Similar In More Ways Then One

The 2009 Chicago Bears have been horrible this year. They haven't lived up to expectations, in fact, they missed all expectations by a long shot. In the game of football, when things go wrong, the first guy to hear the criticism is the Quarter Back. Regardless of the situation the team is in. Regardless of the performance of the rest of the team.

This year, that Quarter Back is Jay Cutler. Now, no one is trying to defend his league leading 26 interceptions, and surely, some of the blame is warranted, but when is the line between fair and unfair crossed?

The 11 - 4 Minnesota Vikings have had a wonderful year, they have been one of the leagues most dominating teams, and won the NFC north with relative ease. 40 year old Brett Favre has been the Cinderella story of the NFL by returning from retirement and leading the Minnesota Vikings to the playoffs while putting up huge numbers. Favre, undoubtedly, has been superb.

In recent weeks, many people have turned on the once praised Jay Cutler, and he has drawn comparisons to the infamous bust, Jeff George. Cutler does indeed have a gunslinger mentality, simliar to George, and he can be mistake prone, which was George's key characteristic. However, another name comes to mind when the words "gunslinger", "rocket arm", and "mistake prone" are mentioned. That name is Brett Favre.

Heading into the game against the Vikings in week 16, Cutler had completed 60.7 percent of his passes for 3,117 yards with 19 touchdowns, 25 interceptions and a 71.1 passer rating. In 1993, Brett Favre's second year as a starter, he completed 60.9 percent of his passes for 3,303 yards with 19 TD's, 24 interceptions and a 72.2 passer rating.These numbers are so nearly identical its almost scary.

The point here is that we definetly should not be chalking Cutler up as a bust after one bad year, after all, the guy was in the pro bowl in 08. Plenty of great quarter backs led the league in interceptions. This list includes Peyton Manning, Joe Montana, and even good old Brett Farve, twice.

Following Brett's catastrophic 1993 campaign, he rebounded with a touchdown to interception ratio of 33/14, so why can we assume Cutler cant do the same?

Last night in Minnesota Jay Cutler showed us who he really is. If he has some time in the pocket, complete with a decent running game and decent receivers, he will throw for many yards and countless touchdowns, and yeah, maybe a few interceptions here and there.

Hey, if anyone knows about interceptions, its future hall of fame member Brett Farve, who has thrown more then any other QB in the history of the NFL.

Give Jay a chance people, if Brett did it, so can Jay. Forget the Jeff George comparisons, bring on the Brett Farve comparisons.