The draft should not be looked at as help for today. It should be looked at as long term. This phlosophy would say Cutler would be a smart, logical, long term choice.
There are reasons to follow this philosophy.
Last year we took Antrell Rolle. How much did he help us last year? Arrington was taken in round 2. How much did he help us last year.
In 2004 we took Fitgerald and he had a darn good year....but as I recall we didn't make the playoffs. In round 2 we took Karlos Dansby, a player on the verge of being great, but again not enough of an impact to help make us a winner that year.
In 2003, The infamous "trade down". Calvin PAce and Bryant Johnson. Nuff said.
It would be a drastic mistake to plan on ANY player to make a major contribution to the point of pushing us over the top this year. A player like Ngata or Justice may indeed help the cause and have more of an impact than Cutler today, but draft picks are for tomorrow. ANY contribution from this years batch of prospects should be considered a bonus.
To put it another way, if Cutler is ranked by the Cards brass as the 10th best player and their top 9 are gone , then Cutler will be a Cardinal. . If he's ranked as the 7th best player and he's still available, Cutler will be a Cardinal. If he is ranked the 11th best player, then we will take somebody else.
We simply must take the best player available. Thats what got us this franchise on the upward swing. I too, want to win this year. But we can't be so short sighted that we pass on a player for that reason alone.
So to answer the question. I don't know!