The first reason for my vote for Kyle as our QB for the next 3-5 years can be found here:

http://drunkathlete.com/2008/09/06/kyle-orton-montage/

http://drunkathlete.com/2008/09/08/kyle-orton-back-again/

Apparently, he went to Purdue just to drink...Boilermakers. It's awesome nonetheless.

more after the jump.

You can see a very logical post on why Kyle Orton is no upgrade over Matt Cassel here, but I'm going to attempt to refute it a little.

In the comments of the above thread, I already touched on some of these points, but I wanted to dig into some numbers and see what I could find. I haven't looked into this prior, so I could shoot myself in the foot and prove that we are in no better shape. Let's take the red pill and see what we find.

College:

This is a cheap place to start, but I know I'm going to be right in this particular area.

I don't know how to do fancy tables so, bear with me.

Kyle Orton totals: 59% completion 8918 yards 61 TDs 24 INT

Matt Cassel totals: 61% (33 attempts) 192 yards 0 TD 1 INT

Wasn't one of the arguments against Matt Cassel ever being a franchise QB the fact that he was a lifetime backup?

Pro Career:

I think it is worthy to note that Kyle Orton started as a Rookie. That year he had his worst year statistically and still led the Bears to a 10-5 record and a bit of a Grbac/Gannon Thigpen/Huard type controversy.

Totals:

Orton:

Cassel:

A couple things jump out at me. Yes, the numbers are similar in a lot of places. The two years I immediately would like to throw out are Orton's rookie year and Cassel's breakout New England year. To me, it's for the sake of fairness, but it could also be my quest to back my thoughts. I don't think it's fair to hold Orton's rookie year against him while Cassel was holding Brady's (foot)balls. I also don't know if you can compare Cassel with Moss and Welker to any other Cassel year. The quickest of glances show that those numbers are inflated.

Orton without Rookie year: 1058/1771 59.47% 12183 yds 6.88y/a 70:42 TD:INT 83.82 rating

Cassel without New England: 715/1251 57.15% 8006 yds 6.40 y/a 55:34 TD: INT 79.70 rating

Although I think it's unfair to say, "let's take out Kyle's bad year and Cassel's good year", I think there's logic to it. I hope there's logic to it. Cassel gets to keep last year because, well, that was a career year and he (and Bowe) earned it.

Honestly, the difference above isn't as glaring as I had hoped. The point I was hoping to prove was less to do with TDs and interceptions and more to do with completion percentage and most importantly, to me, yards per attempt.

I was planning on manipulating numbers and finding several cases in which Orton outshines Cassel. However, considering the results of experiment one, I'm going to concede to Texas Chief that, statistically, they're very similar and resort to a "nuh uh" approach...

"nuh uh"

With my untrained eye, Orton looks more like an NFL QB. Not just against the packers, throughout his career. It also seems he can play the role of gunslinger or game manager. He has a quicker release and a bigger arm. I'm excited by the possibilities of him teaming up with ALL of our offensive weapons next year. Every aspect of our offense looked better with him in there. As much as I hated that Cassel wouldn't go through progressions (Truth be told, I'm not a Cassel hater), it wasn't until I saw Kyle Orton stand in the pocket and spread the ball all over the field with MY TEAM that I realized how bad it truly has been.

Even if it means 16 million dollars invested in an Orton/Cassel QB tandem next year until we figure out what to do with Cassel, I want Orton here next year. I'd be completely content with waiting for another team's starter to go down so Cassel would gain trade value. Could anyone complain if a "lifetime backup" was our backup QB? It's not like we don't have the cap room.

Seeing that without a trade we will not be getting Luck or RG3 this year, I'm all for staying the course. Let's build the line, get a thunder complement to Charles' lightning and wreak havoc. If we can net a strong, all-purpose offensive line for Kyle Orton, it gives us the luxury of being able to draft either another project QB this year or a stud 1st rounder in the following year. Worst case scenario, we have a 1-2 year, 3 game Kyle Orton plan with a stronger line and another strong running team.

This is my first post, and I hope I haven't lost everyone with my longwindedness for what is, apparently, circular reasoning. I nearly deleted this whole thing when the results came out as they did, but wanted to dip my toe in the waters of posting after years of reading. I apologize, be gentle.

But hey...I publicly stated my opinion on the matter. Now, I am open to be publicly mocked when wrong. That's what the internet is all about. I can't wait for orton to go out and literally take a shit on the 50 yard line Saturday against the raiders to bring me (and all my brethren) down to earth. It's what I deserve.