It is no secret Jay Cutler’s production this season has fallen off a cliff, and still appears to be in freefall. Blame it on the absence of a running game, an awful offensive line, Cutler’s gunslinging style not being used properly by Ron Turner or Cutler’s many, many, many picks, but the fact remains: his first year in Chicago has not been a good one. (And those defending Cutler by saying a lot of his picks are the fault of his receivers, and not him alone? Ron Jaworski thinks otherwise. Ron Jaworski thinks 22 of Cutler’s 25 picks have been on him, and him alone. Don’t mess with Ron Jaworski.)

In fact, as Football Outsiders (Insider $), points out this fine morning, Cutler’s season-to-season regression from last year in Denver to this year with the Bears ranks as the worst since at least 1994, according to its DVOA metric.

You can get an explanation of DVOA here. But just know that league average DVOA is 0 percent. Cutler’s DVOA last year was 22.0 percent, which along with his other statistics and production, Football Outsiders ranked him fifth in the league among all quarterbacks, behind franchise guys Drew Brees, Payton Manning, Philip Rivers and Kurt Warner. (OK, well, Warner isn’t exactly a franchise quarterback anymore, but his 2008 season was excellent, culminating in a Super Bowl loss.)

This year? Cutler’s DVOA is a woeful -24.9 percent, good for a -46.9 percent change. And couple that with all his other less-than-stellar marks, and he’s Football Outsiders’ 42nd ranked QB this season, sandwiched between Derek Anderson and Matt Cassel.

This is for guys with a minimum of 100 passes, and Football Outsiders only ranks the top 45 QB’s. So Cutler is 42 out of 45, only outclassing Cassel, rookie Matt Stafford and everybody’s favorite punching bag of a quarterback, JaMarcus Russell.

In short: Cutler has been pretty terrible this season.

So what can be done?

The few real recovery stories don’t seem to relate to Cutler’s experience in Chicago … Cutler’s not going to another team any time soon, so it seems the main hope would be a new offense with a new coach. He’s probably going to get a new coach in 2010, but we’ll have to see what kind of offensive scheme comes with that change.

In the short term, perhaps a passing-game focus on Forte, who actually led the Bears in receptions in 2008 when their pass offense DVOA was 4.6 percent as opposed to the minus-20.9 percent it is now. In the long term, it has to be about the construction of an offense that plays to Cutler’s strengths and the addition of personnel that matches his abilities. Of course, the rebuilding will have to happen without the draft picks given to Denver for Cutler in the first place.

This is what we already know: For as bad as Cutler has been, the Bears didn’t give him the tools to succeed. They didn’t pair him with an offense that works best with his style, and players of a skill set with which he could thrive. The o-line has been bad, and there isn’t a true No. 1 receiver on the team.

A coaching change is an easy fix. Going out and getting players without the aid of draft picks won’t be so easy.