First let me address a couple of things here so others can know where I stand on this entire issue...
1. I side with McDaniels on this entire situation. He is going about his business in Denver exactly the way BB would. By putting Cutler on the trading block, he is sending a message to other guys in the locker room that anybody, at anytime, can be cut for not doing their job. I believe that Cutler is being an overdramatic baby about the whole thing. He almost comes off as an immature little *****, for lack of a better word.
2. When I draw parallels between Cutler and Brady, they are used as a point of reference. Not as a comparison. As I said in my last post, there is no comparison between the two. Brady is a multiple Super Bowl winner and possibly one of the top three quarterbacks ever to play the game (hell, possibly the BEST by the time his career is all said and done). Cutler is not. The reason I refer to Brady and the Pats so much is due to the fact that the Pats are the team by which you and I are most familiar with. It's easy to point them out. We were arguing inconsistent QB play, right? I could have pointed out some of the best QBs in the game today. Manning, Palmer, Rivers, even your boy Brees. But it's easier for me to point to Brady and the Pats to make or counter a point and it's easier for you to understand without having to look up Wikipedia or Google.
I don't know if I can get to every point because the back and forth is getting too cumbersome, but I will address some of the issues. The guy is far too inconsistent and can be rattled.
Again, any quarterback can be rattled. Our very own TFB was rattled in the Super Bowl. NFL defenses are far too punishing not to rattle you when you get hit. Does that mean every quarterback in the league is overrated? And I would agree with you that Cutler is somewhat inconsistent. But he's pretty far from very inconsistent. Very inconsistent would be Derek Anderson, who looked like a Pro Bowler against the defending champion Giants then looked like crap the rest of the season. Very inconsistent would be throwing more TDs than INTs in your first three seasons, which Cutler has not. I will agree, however, that he has a tendency to force balls and/or adopt the gunslinger mentality that Favre had.
First, I never said Cutler sucked. I said he is overrated. Big difference. I think he is an above average QB, but he has no awareness of the field, can't read defenses, and doesn't seem to believe in game preparation. He kinda reminds me of Daunte Culpepper in a way. Culpepper is a really dumb QB who relied on his physical abilities and never developed the mental part of the game and when he lost his physical gifts went from an MVP candidate to a marginal starter (and I am being kind here).
Again -- where is the proof that Cutler does not like watching film or skips film sessions? You said yourself before that's a rumor. There is no concrete evidence of it. As a Pats fan, have you not learned yet about those rumors? If Cutler has no awareness of the field, can you explain why he's thrown more TDs than INTs in every season that he's been a starter?
You can talk about having no running game and no defense, but you can make the same argument about Drew Brees over the last two years.
Brees had one of the best running games in the NFL to work with in 2006 and still had those two behind him in 2007. I will agree with you about the defense part though. The Saints' defense is god awful. However, using Brees only backs up my point, IMO. Brees has thrown double digit INTs every year since he's been a pro except for one. While the beginning of 2008 started off with Reggie Bush finding his way step by step on the field and becoming more and more explosive, Brees lit defenses up because they were forced to stay honest against Buch, Henderson, and Colston. Once Bush went down, Brees finished a little slower than he started. His final stats - 34 TDs, 17 INTs. Now, while 34 TDs is very good, 17 INTs is not, in your line of thinking. Brees finished with one less INT than Cutler did with, arguably, more weapons on offense to keep the opposing defense honest. In 2007, he finished with 28 TDs and 18 INTs... not a whole lot better than Cutler did in 2008.
Peyton Manning rarely has a defense to back him up although he does have a running game most years (although not last year).
So you try to tear me a new one for Brady but then use Manning as your point of reference? Yes, Manning did not have defenses to back him up in 2003 and 2004. Look what happened. No Super Bowl. In 2005, some of the pieces for Dungy's Tampa-2 were there but it was not complete. They rolled into the playoffs behind Manning, James, Harrison, and Wayne on offense and a pretty good defense. Unfortunately, Manning choked against the Steelers and cost his team the game. In 2006, the pieces were complete but injuries depleted the defense in the regular season. When those pieces came together right before the playoffs (along with Bob Sanders coming back), the Colts defense carried them to a Super Bowl despite Manning not putting up great performances in the playoffs. Lesson? The team may have it's superstar, but even that superstar needs help from personnel around him in order to be better.
Comparing Brady to Cutler is a little laughable. Even when Brady had no WRs in 2005, he was never up and down like Cutler was. Brady had bad games here and there, but Cutler had 8 games with a QB rating under 78 and six games where he threw more INTs than TDs (any time you throw more INTs than TDs is a bad game in my book). Brady has never been that inconsistent. Few if any great QB are.
Brady had pretty good receivers in 2005. You're thinking of 2006. That was the Caldwell-Gaffney-Gabriel-Brown year. And yes, I do agree that you cannot compare Cutler to Brady... as I've already said. By the way - Cutler's QB rating to finish last year was 86.0. Not bad for a guy who is supposedly overrated.
As for the San Deigo games, two points: Yes, Cutler redeemed himself with a key TD, but that TD should never had happened because of a bonehead mistake for Cutler.
Again, every quarterback makes a boneheaded mistake in his career. Even the best coaches make mistakes (see Bill Belichick vs. Colts 2008).
Yeah, this is getting tedious.
