With all the feuding taking place around the Bronco’s locker room, this reporter wonders who’s to blame and why?
These past few weeks punches were thrown between newly hired Broncos coach, Josh McDaniels, and Broncos quarterback, Jay Cutler, due to trade talks involving Cutler. The chaos started after McDaniels went public trying to acquire his old quarterback from New England, Matt Cassel. The decision to go after Matt Cassel caused all variety of uproars with Cutler, who was under the impression that he was the quarterback of the future for the Broncos (some guy named Mike Shanahan told him so).
The fighting continued after a meeting between Cutler and the Broncos’ coaching staff and front office didn’t go as planned adding more fuel to the fire.
Cutler said in an interview after a meeting with McDaniels, “He [McDaniels] admitted he wanted Matt Cassel because he said he has raised him up from the ground as a quarterback. He said he wasn’t sorry about it.” After this statement, Cutler and his agent Brian Cook requested a trade. After that statement, owner Pat Bowlen commented on the whole situation saying, “I’m very disappointed. I’m disappointed in the whole picture, not just disappointed that we might lose our star quarterback.”
After the dust cleared this is what the Broncos are left with: McDaniels made a historically bad mistake even thinking about trading Cutler. The trade would have been a quarterback swap, Cassel for Cutler. This, in the first place, is a horrible trade. Cassel doesn’t match up with Cutler on the field, and that doesn’t even include the comradery that would be lost between Cutler and his young receiving core. Wanting the trade on the grounds of who a player is as a person instead of his skill level wasn’t a smart decision on McDaniels’ part.
The blame doesn’t end with McDaniels; Cutler could have handled this situation much better than he did. The young quarterback needs to look at the Broncos as his employer; and right now, under his contract, Cutler is technically property If the Broncos decide to trade him then it’s their prerogative. Also, the youngster made too big of a deal out of rumors. The idea of the trade was exactly what it sounds like, an idea and nothing more. So a big situation was created out of a petty ordeal. The classic mountain out of a mole hill.
The blame once again doesn’t end there. Owner Pat Bowlen needs to step in and put the situation to rest. As owner he needs to intervene and settle the situation. It’s on Bowlen to reel Cutler back in and get the Broncos focused on the season and not petty feuds.
To recap, new head coach Josh McDaniels made a rookie head coach mistake. The trade idea was idiotic and shouldn’t even have been considered. Denver Post Sports writer, Dave Krieger, said the following concerning the future of both McDaniels and Cutler, “Which is easier to replace, a 25-year-old Pro Bowl quarterback or a 32-year-old rookie coach? No contest. There are thousands of football coaches out there who have never won an NFL game, hundreds with an NFL assistant’s job on the resume, dozens with a coordinator’s job.” Well said.
I’m not saying either should leave Denver, but they both need to focus on moving past this situation. They both need to leave the past in the past and move forward toward a great season and hopefully a playoff berth. To make this work they each need to do one thing. First, McDaniels needs to recognize that Cutler is the quarterback of this team publicly. He needs to show Cutler he has faith in him to lead this team in the upcoming season. On Cutler’s part, he needs to wipe his tears away and act like a professional athlete. The majority of the sports columnists in Colorado have come running to the side of Cutler much like Krieger did, and Cutler needs to realize this and use it to patch up his torn self-esteem. The blame is solely falling on McDaniels, but Cutler never helped the situation; he’s an adult and he needs to act like one.
If none of this happens I still say that Cutler needs to stay in Denver. The Broncos went public this week saying that they are going to meet Cutler’s demand and find a suitable trade. Regardless of that, I still believe that Cutler should stay in Denver and overcome his feuding with McDaniels. And nowhere does it say that a player needs to like his coach in order to play well, just ask any of the players who have played under Bobby Knight, they’ll tell you.
