Thoughts on Tennessee & Moving Forward

I do not think that we have anywhere near the offensive talent that KC has. They most likely have the offensive rookie of the year, a top tight 2 or three tight end, and one of the fastest men on the planet on Tyreek Hill. Their line is pretty solid. Alex Smith is a substantial upgrade over Cutler.

I did not mention yard or stats because my point is that Cutler has an average rate of success (17th in completion percentage), but the wrong plays are being called. In fact, based on this new horizontal offense that Gase is calling, Cutler can be successful at his responsibility (throw a complete pass), but we can literally gain no yards or even lose yards. In all honesty, if the coach calls a play, and your role is the throw the ball horizontally, and you do it, how can you negatively grade Cutler?

I understand your concern about not having pinpoint accuracy, but again, he is 17th in the league in accuracy. Essentially, that means there are a handful of guys much more accurate than him. Most of the league is in his wheelhouse, and there are a few guys significantly worse than him. Even if you wanted to go so far as saying he is slightly below average, I would still expect some sort of offensive production.

I just can't see how this isn't an obvious combination of a poor offensive line and abysmal coaching.

 

You're using 62.5% completion percentage based on an average pass of 5.4 yards, which may be the worse in the league for a starter this year, as defense of Cutler, who has thrown 3 TDs and 3 INTs...

What's the story on that "Smokin' Special" he threw into blanket coverage?

As for the OL, this is the same OL talent as last season when we won 10 games. They are bad, make no mistake in what I'm saying, but Cutler is terrible and he's in the same offense he was in while with Chicago.

 

I am fully aware that his average pass is low, but that is categorically not on him. He doesn't design the routes. He doesn't call the plays. If a play is designed to literally go zero yards down the field (WR screen), and Jay gets the ball to his receiver, he has done his job, right? Now, why would that zero yard pass reflect poorly on him. He completed his objective for the play. Just count the amount of screens that have been thrown. His average pass play yard has far more to do with Gase than Cutler.

Having a good o-line last year has nothing to do with this year.

As for the INT, it was bad. Throwing one INT does not make you a bad passer.

You're not being fair.

 

Intuition is actually wrong on how completion percentage relates to YPA (note: YPA is NOT the same thing as how far the ball travels in the air.. you're thinking of how far the ball travels in the air). In general, higher YPA for a QB means better completion percentage (with no claims about causality btw). Here's the data for all starting QB's from 2013-2016:


So Cutler having 62.6% completion percentage given his low YPA is actually well above expected. Not defending him otherwise, but on this stat he's not bad.

 

No, he's not doing his job. If he were doing his job we wouldn't have the 32nd ranked offense averaging 8 ppg. Lobbing a duck off-target in the general direction of a WR is not doing his job. We're among the last in the league at YAC as well. Why? It could be that the WRs are getting the ball late and off-target. How many TDs have been missed due to the WRs having to wait on the ball to arrive, which gives the defenders chances to INT or knock it away? Grant was victimized by a poor TD pass, and Landry has missed at least 2 TDs due to it.

You also seem to be implying that Gase has every receiver operating within 7 yards of the LOS. Instead, Gase has WRs running routes at all levels, and as he explained last season, the play may call for a WR screen or a 5 yard slant, but the QB still has a deep option and an intermediate route being ran. Same thing on a deep play call - the QB has the option to go elsewhere. Jay simply isn't looking for them. He is not going thru progressions. He's looking to bail from the pocket as soon as he starts back pedaling at the snap, then he starts looking for where to go with the ball.

We had a good OL last season? They were ranked #30 by PFF and FootballOutsiders also had them low. So far, they are ranked #17 in pass protection and #27 in run blocking. Actually, we haven't had a "good" OL since Sparano was here back in 2009 - which was coached by Dave Deguglielmo...

And please read what Keyfin wrote about that Completion percentage, and consider that 5 yards passes should be closer to > 80%.