If you consider about 1K less yards and 33% more interceptions, sacks and sack yards going up considerably to be the same I guess. And after that first year never playing a full season again. That's an awful big drop off for a 4th year QB to have on their own.
Cutler was a "gunslinger". Bears just got over their love affair with a gunslinger. That wasn't the problem. Never building a team for a QB, thinking all you need is a QB coupled with loving reckless gunslingers is the problem.
Don't pull out that time to pass BS and only going for long balls like people claim with Fields. It is impossible to average under 10yds if you only throw 50yds. And for a WR to go deep takes time, it is impossible for a WR to go 50yds while a QB gets rid of the ball in anything considerably less than 5 seconds. I can't believe people are this bad at simple math to believe that BS spin.
The crap with Cutler was the same BS we've been dealing with the Bears for decades before and years after. The main problem is the team.
They didn't build for Rex, they didn't build for Jay, they didn't build for Mitch, they didn't build for Justin.
The only time I can think of where they had an offense for the QB was '85. But for some reason because the '85 D was good people forget there was an equally great '85 O.
Look. Sorry to break it to you, but the league knew "Jay" was being "Jay", which is why the good corners feasted on him.
There's more than enough evidence to prove this. Offenses were often janky with Cutler in there. Remember when he got hurt and McCown took over and suddenly looked like Brady between the 20s?
That was because McCown actually RAN the offense as intended. He hit guys on time and the YAC for guys went WAY up. Now, McCown wasn't as good of a QB overall in terms of physical talent and that always showed in the red zone, but the offense looked better with McCown at the helm. That's because Jay didn't play within the scheme, save for I believe his best year under year 1 of Gase?
That said, our OCs were also shit, which explains a lot of the other stuff you were talking about. But a LOT of that was on Jay, and Jay had a reputation for being uncoachable. The difference is Shannahan designed an offense around what Jay did in Denver, and they were more successful because of it, and the Bears OCs tried to force Jay to be what they wanted him to be rather than build around what he did, which I do believe speaks to your point.
The only bone of contention I have is your middle paragraph, really - its a straw man argument. I never said jay only threw 50 yard bombs, but he WAS always looking for the deep ball. Seriously, go back and look at some old games with him. He sits on it, sits on it, sits on it and finally will just be like "fuck, its not there" and dump it off underneath, and the receiver will get tackled right there. The mistake you seem to be making is thinking that's how the offense was designed.
Go back year 1 Trestman and compare Cutler to McCown. And pay attention to when players talk about the rhythm of an offense, passing and playing "in rhythm" etc. Those aren't just catch phrases. When McCown was playing, instead of sitting on the deep ball, he was hitting guys underneath in stride and they were turning it up the field for significant yards. With Jay, he ignored the open receivers underneath until the last minute, and by that time, the defender adjusted to whatever opening was created, and would tackle whoever caught it underneath right there where they caught it more often than not, because whatever hole the scheme created was now gone because the defense compensated.
Seriously, go look. We're both right here. The OCs were stubborn and didn't design an offense to what Cutler wants to do, but at the same time, Cutler refused to run most offenses the way they were intended.
