No offense, but your stance on this doesn't make a lot of sense. If Cutler threw 33% more passes, it stands to reason that he'd have roughly 33% more deep completions, which he did. Now, if he had twice as many deep completions, that would show that he was demonstrably more successful at deep passing... or if he had the same number or even fewer deep completions, it would show he wasn't as successful at deep passing. But just saying Cutler is better because he completed 5 more passes for 30+ yards doesn't make a lot of sense.
But he DID have more than twice as many deep passes completed, which was 4 more. The sample size is too small to hold up to data alone. Want to look at career stats? Orton has 7 40y+ pass plays on 913 attempts (.7%).
Cutler has 16 40y+ pass plays on 1220 attempts (.13%)
So yes, Cutler does complete twice as many deep pass plays as Orton.
How about 20y+?
Orton 60 (6.5%), Cutler 106 (8.7%), thats 33% better.
Why Cutler indeed?
With 3, Orton was tied at
27th in 2008 of QBs with 40+ yard pass plays (Cutler was 13). Brees and Rogers each had 16. Matt Ryan had 9, Joe Flacco had 10- we aren't talking about top flight passing offenses here.
Oh, and that's
29th by percentage of attempts.
20y+ plays? Orton was 20th in raw numbers, 24th as a percentage of completions. That's behind Shawn Hill and Jamarcus Russell.
Your Michael Vick analogy is silly and doesn't warrant any response.
I agree, its an argument ad absurd um. It goes to my point that when a guy isn't called upon to do something it doesn't make a lot of sense to extrapolate what he would do given a very limited data set.
How is using percentages not judging players on what they did? Do you not value completion percentage? Yards per attempt? QB rating? Yards per carry? Yards per reception?
What doesn't make a lot of sense is assuming you can extrapolate what Orton would do if you simply gave him a bunch more attempts, particularly with the deep ball. He wasn't throwing deep for a reason.Percentages are fine! Just don't think you can extrapolate those percentages out and get a meaningful result. It's the same mistake people make all the time with part time running backs. Just because they can rack up 5 yards a carry on 5 carries doesn't mean they can do that with 20 carries.
The bottom line is nobody is afraid of Orton throwing over their head, and that impacts everything the offense can do. That's not going to change just because Marshall is in the equation. That Orton completed a small number of deep balls on a small number of attempts doesn't mean he can linearly increase that. Teams don't expect Orton to air it out- but if he starts doing it all the time he won't be surprising anyone and it will become much more difficult for him.
There isn't a single statistic you can point to that will show Orton to be a top 15 or even 20 QB. He was 25th in QB rating, 24th in Y/A, 18th in TD/INT. My question is, statistically speaking, what are YOU looking at to project success from Orton?
Yes, better talent will help improve him, but how much? Not enough in my opinion, because quite simply he doesn't have a broad enough arsenal of tools at his disposal. He is a classic pocket passer that can't do much else. If they can consistantly give him 5 seconds and space to step into his throws, he can be pretty good. If not, he'll be miserable. But he will NEVER throw over defenses heads consistently. The only way he can get the ball out that far is with a big windup and slow release, which allows DBs time to get back into position. The really good QBs in this league can get the ball out fast AND far, and that's how you see a guy behind the defense running down the sideline. That's important as a threat to keep defenses honest. And that is what 'arm strength' is about. Not needing your entire body lined up like a golfer to get it way out there.