how good Cutler was when Denver actually played D (12-1 when holding opponents under 21 pts).
I think this is something of a misleading stat as it kind of implies that Denver probably lost a lot of shootouts along the way, and that isn't really the case; in Cutler's 17 losses over the last two years as Denver's full time starter, the team has put up the following point totals:14, 20, 3, 13, 7, 34, 20, 13, 3, 19, 17, 7, 17, 10, 10, 23, 21That's an average of just under 15 points a game. Notice that in only two of those 17 losses did they score more than 21 points in the game. By contrast they also had two losses where they scored 3 points and two losses where they scored 7 points. Which means in their losses the offense was just as likely to have only scored a field goal, and twice as likely to have scored in single digits, as they were to have scored more than 21 points.