The debacle of Jay Cutler’s off-season in Denver is finally over. If only things were that easy for Josh McDaniels. Jay Cutler was a cannon-armed QB with seemingly limitless potential, lacking only the looks of his bodybuilding namesake. Josh McDaniels had great success nurturing QB talent such as Brady and Matt Cassell . He is a coaching prodigy reminiscent of a younger, slimmer, handsomer, classier version of Eric Mangini. It was also the first time ever where the coach was better looking than the star athlete of a pro team. Yet what on the outset looked like a marriage made in heaven quickly devolved into an ugly mess.
It was McDaniels’ bone-headed attempt to deal Cutler in a 3 way trade for his boy Matt Cassell that started this whole mess. When you are blessed with a young talent like Jay Cutler, why would you go and try to deal him right off the bat? Especially for a player like Cassell who isn’t even as talented. McDaniels had it so good, but wrecked it for no reason. It would be like if a post-Full House John Stamos had left Rebecca Romijn for his high-school sweetheart. It reeks of a coach wanting the player he is familiar with rather than working with the talented youngster he already has. It’s the same thing I do in Madden when I gut a team’s roster and trade for my favorite players. Good Video Game Strategy, not so much for running an NFL franchise.
From here on this situation got uglier than my March Madness Bracket(I’m looking at you, Pitt). It became a case of McDaniels’ stubbornness vs. Cutler’s fragility. It’s very hard to know what actually happened in the war of words, but I think if McDaniels had come out at the start and categorically said Cutler would not be traded, period, Cutler would still be a Bronco. If he had babied Cutler a bit at their infamous meeting, the same might be true. But the rest is history, and now McDaniels has gone from looking like the next Belichek to the next Isiah Thomas. McDaniels is now minus a franchise QB, having to mend fences in the locker room and with a disillusioned fan base. Broncos fans are crying, Bears fans are rejoicing, Mike Shanahan is laughing, and Josh McDaniels may be well on his way to becoming a cautionary tale.
The good looking Jay Cutler would also tear apart NFL defenses.
