Don’t blame Cutler for Sunday’s awful performance in victory
DAVIE — It gets old hearing Adam Gase defend Dolphins quarterback Jay Cutler at every turn even as he puts together mediocre numbers, but it looks like he has a point coming off the win over Tennessee.
“If guys would do their jobs, catch the ball, block the right guys, give the quarterback a chance to do something . ... Jay’s way down on the list of things going wrong,” Gase said Sunday.
Cutler was 12 of 26 for 92 yards, one touchdown, one interception and a passer rating of 52.1. Statistically, that goes down as one of the worst games of his 12-year career.
However, after looking back at every throw multiple times, he wasn’t as bad as those numbers indicate. For starters, he lost five completions on drops by his receivers. Jakeem Grant couldn’t hold on to a would-be touchdown catch in the first quarter, and there were also drops by MarQueis Gray, Julius Thomas, Jarvis Landry and Kenny Stills.
All were fairly straightforward drops, meaning passes an NFL receiver is expected to catch. Catching just those five passes would bump Cutler to 17 of 26, 161 yards and two touchdowns. Not amazing, but it would’ve pushed his passer rating to a much more tolerable 92.0.
Of Cutler’s 26 attempts, just four would be considered bad throws. He also had four incompletions that were simply throwaway balls caused by the defensive line bearing down on him.
On his second-quarter interception, he was under pressure and would’ve been wise to throw it away or scramble. Instead, he forced the ball to Anthony Fasano in tight coverage against linebacker Wesley Woodyard with cornerback Tye Smith playing back a few yards in case Woodyard got beat. There was little shot at completing this pass, which Woodyard deflected to Smith for the pick.
Cutler also forced a ball to Landry in which he and safety Da’Norris Searcy got their hands on the ball at the same time, he threw one to Thomas in double coverage with no space whatsoever and missed two open receivers to his left when he fired one wide right for Thomas in double coverage in the end zone with 10:38 remaining.
But two points on that last throw: 1. Cutler was under pressure from the left side, making it difficult to turn and throw that direction, 2. He followed on the next play with a touchdown pass to Landry.
He also had one pass that sailed long on Landry in the middle of the fourth quarter, another attempt that came with the pocket falling apart.
Those details make his 14 incompletions not look so bad: five drops, four throwaways, one overthrow in which it’s debatable whether the offensive line is to blame and four bad throws.