Ill play devil's advocate for a bit, well just cuz I feel like it.
I preface this by saying I'm a huge Forte fan. I owned him in every league that I'm in. Drafted him recently at 1.13 in a dynasty league(before CHI got Cutler) and will draft him at almost any given chance.
I don't think you can call this argument done and over with. I just don't think the opposition argument was well explained with exception of a few posts.
Forte was the bears everything last year. Every down, he was on the field. He touched the ball 379 times. That is quite a bit of pounding he received. Don't forget he was also utilized frequently in pass protection so thats even more pounding. The Bears themselves deemed it too much so they vowed find a 2nd RB to relieve some of the touches.
This is from David Richard of CBSsports
A new wrinkle in the running game also will catch some attention. After Matt Forte logged 316 carries and 63 receptions last year, the Bears made it a priority to find someone to help him with the rushing workload. They didn't look far as Kevin Jones was re-signed and tabbed to aid Forte in 2009. The Bears like Jones' familiarity with the offense and feel like he's better off now that he's more than a year removed from major knee surgery. Jones shouldn't take on enough work to limit Forte's stats, but he could trim Forte's upside by swiping 100 touches over the course of the year.
Forte had 316/434 rushes of the teams total. 73%
63/304 receptions of teams total. 20%
51% of teams total offensive touches
Those are pretty high percentages. By comparison, here are other percentages of workhorse around the league.
Rsh -Rec (Total offensive touches)
73% -20% Matt Forte(51%
72% -8% Clinton Portis(46%)
70% -8% Adrian Peterson(49%)
70%-17% L Tomlinson(47%)
69% -10% Thomas Jones(42%)
67% -2% Micheal Turner(46%)
68% -10% Jamal Lewis (47%)
52% -15%Brian Westbrook(36%)
Frank Gore(40%)
Fortes percentages are higher in both rushing and receiving than any other RB in the league. That is where his value was. He was force fed the ball. I know, I followed every game of his. With the team trading for a franchise QB, drafting a 3rd round WR, vowing to give Forte more rest, do you really see those percentages staying that high? I don't believe thats going to happen.
And for Cutler. Yes, he never really had a RB as productive as Forte. Yes, they were pass happy because they couldn't consistently run the ball. I am going to show 2 sets of stats. completions to RB/Total Completions/total passes and then 2 percentages for both Chicago and Cutler.
Chicago
71(completions to RB)/304(completions)/528(pass attempts)
23%(% of completions to RB over completions)-13%(% of completions to RB over pass attempts)
Denver - Cutlers 2 years as starter
(2008 season)
42/386/620
11%-7%
(2007 season)
45/326/515
14%-9%
So, as cutler became more established as a QB, he looked less and less for Rbs each time he dropped back. The numbers show that Cutler trusted his arm and chucked it instead of dropping it off. Orton on the other hand lacks that big arm which also explains why he dropped it off so much to Forte. It's not hard to think that Cutler will again trust his arm(most strong armed qb's do this) and chuck it instead of checking it down.
Of course, any thing can be argued due to circumstances. Every argument I've made I can counter logically. It all depends on how much weight you give to each side. With Cutler and offseason additions, Forte's ypc does stand to improve. I do believe his touches will go down a bit also. Is it possible they cancel each other out? absolutely.
It's hard to draw accurate parallels. However, Farve to the Jets and the subsequent value of T. Jones is about as close as you can get in recent memory.
You don't win championships by living in the past...
