Cutler Quandary
I am going to weigh in on the Jay Cutler issue. A part of me wants to say to Cutler, "Hey, this is professional sports, anyone can be traded, suck it up." However, a larger part puts all of the blame on the Broncos ownership and management.
According to NFL insider Mike Lombardi of the National Football Post, Denver was more involved in starting the trade talks than they have let on. The New England Patriots put the franchise tag on Matt Cassell to keep him on their roster and use him for a trade. The downside of the franchise tag is that it gives him a large cap number, so you can't get his full value. Still, it was better than letting him enter free agency and not getting anything for him. During the NFL combine, New England approached the Detroit Lions and Tampa Bay Bucs management regarding a trade for Matt Cassell. Neither team was interested at the time, however, shortly after this, both teams approached New England about a trade. New England realized that something else was going on, and word began to spread about Denver wanting Cassell.
Denver did not want to deal directly with New England, as they were in the process of signing two other New England players, a long snapper and third string receiver. New England ended up striking a deal with Kansas City that gave them a second round draft pick and freed up $14 million of cap space. If Denver Coach Josh McDaniels truly wanted to put his stamp on the Broncos by bringing in his former player, Cassell, he should have directly had talks with New England about a three team deal and not tried a backdoor method. It blew up in his face and amplified his inexperience. Listen to Bill Simmons' podcast with Mike Lombardi on 3/17 for more info on this.
Now, I still don't understand why McDaniels would bring in Cassell over Cutler. Yes, Cutler's record is only 0.500, but you can't put the blame on him for the Broncos' ineptitude the past two seasons. Cutler's record is 13-1 when the Broncos Defense held opponents to under 21 points (NFL average was 22 ppg last year). In 2008, he threw for 4,526 yards, 25 touchdowns, and 18 interceptions. The Broncos terrible defense and poor running attack were the downfall of last season. Still, I can only think of one time that Cutler blamed the defense or another player for a loss, and even that was indirectly.
After firing Mike Shanahan, Owner Pat Bowlen said, "I run the show." Then later, he said of Cutler, "Obviously, he is the man around here now." Well, obviously, that hasn't turned out to be the case. Bowlen screwed up in the first place by not hiring a GM first and then a coach second. This was the same problem with Shanahan, as Mike was a great coach, but a mediocre GM. Now, McDaniels has become the co-general manager. Bowlen should have fixed the biggest problem first and hired a GM.
Anyone agree or disagree?
posted by Me @ 3:37 PM
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