Who?
ESPN Chris Mortensen thinks Jay Cutler (of Vanderbilt) is the best quarterback in the draft.
I am not alone. A bunch of NFL scouts are whispering the same thing during Senior Bowl week in Mobile, Ala. Some of those even will put out some “negatives” on Cutler deliberately in hopes that he’ll drop a little in the draft. It’s not going to work.
“It’s not even worth trying to downgrade the kid … hoping he slides,” one top personnel director said. “The secret is out.”
I have felt for almost a year now that Cutler is the best quarterback prospect, and nothing has changed my mind. If anything, he has even solidified his standing now that I’ve had the pleasure and benefit of personally seeing him play in the Southeastern Conference.
Cutler was the All-SEC first-team quarterback selected by coaches and the media. He was the preseason pick, too. Heck, he was a first-team All-SEC choice as a redshirt freshman.
You know how difficult that is when you play at Vanderbilt in a conference with many of the nation’s heavyweights?
He goes on to compare Cutler to future Hall of Famer Brett Favre.
Cutler’s similarities to Brett Favre are uncanny, except Cutler is far ahead of Favre in the mental aspects of the game at the same career stage. Cutler probably has the strongest arm in this draft. He has moxie. He has a swagger. As Favre did at Southern Mississippi, Cutler had Vandy winning games it had no business winning and competing in games in which the Commodores should have been blown out. As with Favre, his gunslinger mentality will get him in the doghouse with some NFL coach but the upside is way too high to let it bring him down.
So will he go ahead of the smooth arm of Matt Leinart or the tremendous upside of Vince Young?
Assuming the Texans will follow through with their promise to take Reggie Bush first overall, that leaves the New Orleans Saints as the first team to likely take a QB. The Tennessee Titans pick third and the New York Jets pick fourth. In fact, the first team that does not figure to at least consider taking a QB with their first pick is the San Francisco 49ers, who selected Alex Smith first overall last season, so all three quarterbacks could be gone by the seventh pick.
The futures of veterans Steve McNair, Chad Pennington, Brett Favre and Kerry Collins will need to be decided or at least considered before their respective franchises can decide whom to draft. The status of these players (and their backups – namely Billy Volek and Aaron Rogers), along with how these perform at the scouting combine, will decide which quarterback is taken first.
