While the Jay Cutler era is finally over in Enver, there is still a bitter taste in many a mouth over what transpired. I for one am glad I don't have to see Cutler's man bangs on ESPN anymore, and was getting even sicker of the Favre-like coverage on the matter. Since Cutler was traded to Chicago the controversy has died down. Every possible angle of what went wrong was covered, from ownership and coach secretly shopping the QB to Cutler himself not returning attempted phone calls thus spurning the trade. I waited and waited for some so-called expert to pick up on it but they never did. Before I touch on what I think happened, let's first focus on the drama itself.
First, I refer to the city of the Broncos as Enver. Needless to say, there hasn't been a "D" in Enver for years. In fact you'd have to go back to Tom Jackson and the "Orange Crush" to find defense in Denver. That was in the 70's.
When Enver blew a 3 game division lead with 3 games to go this past season, the blame fell on ex head coach Mike Shanahan. Enver replaced the head coach with Patriots Offensive Coordinator 32 year old Josh McDaniels. The youngest head coach in the NFL promtly began shopping Cutler, whom many considered the next John Elway. When word got to Cutler all hell broke loose. Cutler believed he was untradeable, and if that was the case he should have played better. 17-20 as a starter and almost as many turnovers as TD passes doesn't exactly scream John Elway. Neither does missing out on the playoffs every year Cutler has been the starter.
So when McDaniels began shopping Cutler for Matt Cassel, the QB McDaniels molded into an 11 game winner in New England when Tom Brady blew out his knee, people (unexplainably) were shocked. Cutler went into diva mode and quickly began bashing the coach and organization for "listening" to trade offers. Cutler obviously doesn't know this is a business, and definitely didn't get that memo stating "Shut up and play".
Even if we ignored both sides of the story (trade bait and diva mode) I believe Cutler and McDaniels relationship was doomed from the beginning. One man (in my opinion) can be blamed for all of this, and he is ex-coach Mike Shanahan. It's no secret Cutler was pissed when Shanahan got the ax for another dismal year, but Cutler was never going to take the blame for it. As we've learned in sports, there is always a fall guy. So please, don't insult my (or your) intelligence by believing that Shanahan wasn't the voice in Cutler's ear as a result of his firing.
Shanahan just seems like a snake. Part of the reason I think this would never surface is because nobody really cares about Rocky Mountain sports. There is a west coast media, an east coast (bias) media, a mid west media and then there is Enver. Anything can fly under the radar in Enver because only Enver media cares about Enver sports, let alone covers it. It just seems to logical for Shanahan to whisper rumors into Cutler's head. Things like: The organization is going to re-build. The new offense will not be a run-n-gun. You can't be better than Philip Rivers without me. Or the most logical: They are shopping you around.
While all the drama was focused on Bronco ownership shopping around the next John Elway, Shanahan was lying in the weeds, stirring up controversy for the organization that just handed him a pink slip and a cardboard box. It makes to much sense for a disgruntled ex-coach to get a hold of his former players and tell them where they're at isn't the place to be. It's not like Shanahan hopes the Broncos succeed after he leaves. He wants them to suck, he wants to say "I told you so". Don't let the naysayers blow smoke up your hole. Shanahan is the reason this even became news. Don't be blind to the fact that organizations in any sport "listen" to trade offers, they would be stupid not to. Obviously the Yankees wouldn't care for a Jeter trade, but Jay Cutler isn't a winner.
Enjoy throwing passes to horrible receivers in the windy city. When the S hits the fan in Chicago, Shanahan will have already gotten out of Dodge. His motive wasn't to make you better, it was to make sure Enver wouldn't win upon his departure.
-P
