Ratto: The black art of QB analysis

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Jan. 24, 2011RATTO ARCHIVERay Ratto
CSNBayArea.com

Comrade Maiocco is dutifully reportweeting the sizes and dimensions of each and every quarterback who parades half-naked through the Senior Bowl -- which as we all know is the pre-slave market to the NFL combine, which is the actual slave market.

The implication of all this duty, of course, is that somewhere in this gaggle of throwers is the answer to the 49ers dreams, and what we have learned from Sunday is that size aint the issue.

Size is good. Ask Stanford's Andrew Luck. He was actually poured into an NFL-standardized mold his father built in the family garage.

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But Jay Cutler, who is being savaged like an arsonist at the Retired Firemans Hall, has all the size you could want, and the arm too. His name is currently mud, and some of the people slinging that mud are current players.

They have accused him of some level of cowardice in not finishing the Bears-Packers NFC championship game. They have questioned his tolerance for pain, his body language, his diffidence -- essentially, they have mocked him for what old-timers like to call the look on his puss. And as the off-season grinds on, and current Bears are pestered by their contemporaries about Cutler, they may also find doubt creeping into their souls.

So, anyone want Jay Cutlers size today?

This is the beauty of the quarterback game. The sure-fire sign of a great quarterback is the desperate need to apply oneself to be a great quarterback. Lots of failed quarterbacks have that (Alex Smith, come on down), but no great ones lack it.

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Problem is, theres no metric available to prove it. JaMarcus Russell, come on down. So all the size and whatnot is swell, but the dirty little secret about all this quarterback measuring is that nobody knows what they have until theyve already invested a boatload of jack on him.

So lets see a measurement on a quarterbacks heart valves. And then lets see a measurement on team decision-makers. Those are metrics that could make the metric system great. Then well know who has what, and in what useful amount.

In the meantime, Andy Daltons a little smaller than advertised. Im very worried about him.

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