cutler

Championship fallout, Cutler cries

Jeromey Balderrama

What a crazy couple of games yesterday! I love Championship Sunday. In in a football sense, it’s probably the best weekend in the game – even better than the Super Bowl. Instead of one over-hyped game, you get 2 hyped games, that typically deliver in some fashion.

I thought that the Jets/Steelers game was going to be the one to watch, but it turns out Bears/Packers was a more compelling game. Not only was it closer at the end, but it was packed with tons of drama. You have CSU’s own Caleb Hanie leading the Bears from a 14-point deficit and putting them in a spot to win the game. While I began the game rooting for the Packers, I thought a bears win would have been incredibly compelling, if anything for the 2 weeks of distractions this QB situation would cause.

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As a football fan I’m extremely grateful for the sacrifice the players make, just so that we can be entertained, and I do feel bad when a player is injured.  I don’t know the workings of Jay Cutler’s body, and when he says he’s injured, I have no reason not to believe him.  At the same time, players need to understand that the perception of a situation can be worse than the situation itself – and this one of those cases.  It’s one thing when fans are questioning his toughness, but when you had players on Twitter (one of the many reasons why Twitter is so compelling) questioning his toughness, it apparently moved Cutler to tears when he found out.

The issue isn’t whether Cutler got hurt. We’ll out find out in the next day how bad the injury is, which will lead to vindication to one side of the debate.  However, the issue lies with the actions that took place before and after the injury that cause the perception of his injury to take shape.

Before the injury Cutler was playing poorly, and Cutler’s body language reflected his displeasure at the way the game was going.  As much as I hate Tom Brady seemingly berating other players on the sidelines (sometimes for his own mistakes), it’s at least a better reaction than hanging your head and staring at the ground.

Then came the moment that the Bears decided to pull Cutler.  Cutler didn’t go back to the locker room to conduct further tests, nor did he even put an ice pack on his knee. He didn’t put on a headset or try to huddle around his replacements when the came back to the bench. Cutler simply sat down, by himself and stared at the ground the rest of the game, completely disengaged.  At that point, I think Cutler would have better served himself being off the field or even out of the stadium, at least he could use the "we’re looking at the injury" excuse.

Again, I’m not going to question the guy’s heart. Only the training staff knows the severity of his injury at the time, and only Cutler knows how he felt during the game. Unfortunately sometimes in life, perception can be more important than the actual chain of events – and I think to many Bears fans (as well as Cutler critics), the perception speaks volumes.

I’m sorry Bears fans, you guys had a good run.  As crazy as Denver’s QB situation is, I’m just glad that Cutler’s no longer a Bronco. Denver has enough controversy already.

Cutler Bowl (help wanted)

Jeromey Balderrama

CutlerBowl

Tomorrow Denver’s biggest villain since. at least Ashlie Lelie, Eddie Kennison, Brandon Marshall (but who knows?) is coming back to Denver for his home-coming.  Who would have thought anyone would be excited to see a pre-season game, but I can only imagine the amount of vitriol that is going to come from the Orange & Blue fans in the stands when Cutler takes the field.

I’m sorry to say that I actually have a Broncos Cutler jersey in my closet.  Even though I had the Cutler #6, I still couldn’t resist wearing my John Lynch jersey last season.  Now I have a perfectly bad Cutler jersey and I’m trying to come up with a ceremonious way to get rid of the jersey.  We’ll be tailgating at the stadium, so tomorrow would be the perfect opportunity to destroy it.  The obvious answer is to burn it, but I think the stadium security and police would frown upon that. One idea I have is to use it as a doormat, but that seems to obvious.

Basically I’m looking for the perfect idea on how I could destroy my Cutler jersey.  Any suggestions?

Hopefully the last Cutler post ever

Jeromey Balderrama

The picture of Cutler showing his Bear excitement was too classic to wait for a post, but I have plenty of thoughts over what transpired last weekend in Denver. Rather than rehash the whole scenario, I just wanted to offer a few random thoughts.

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First off, Cutler had to go.  He could talk about feeling snubbed by McDaniels all he wants – but when he stops taking call from the guy who signs his checks, Cutler becomes just another disgruntled employee who should be shown the door.  The nerve that he had to claim that he never received any calls, and never wanted to be traded said all that you needed to know about his character.  Despite what really happened – and we may never know – this situation was beyond repair.

Now the Bears, that was definitely a team I didn’t expect to be vying for Cutler, but it all made sense. I think this was a good move by both teams.  People can debate who got the better of the deal, but only time will tell.  It’s up to the Broncos to make smart decisions with these picks, which they’ve honestly could have done better with our First Round track record.  I still think Mark Sanchez may end up in Orange and Blue before we know it.

I like Kyle Orton.  He’s obviously not as talented at Cutler, but is a winning quarterback who did throw for 3,000 yards last year.  When you considered the other quarterbacks on the trading block (Jason Campbell, Brady Quinn), Orton is was probably the most consistent of all.

While the dust settles, it’s still frustrating to think that Bronco fans have endured all of this drama.  After being known as one of the more stable and quiet organizations in the NFL, to have this kind of circus is very Dallas-like.  I’m sick of hearing about Cutlergate every time I turned on ESPN.

Cutler-Gate

Jeromey Balderrama

Ever since that last weekend in February, when the rumors circulated that Cutler was about to be traded, I’ve tried to lie low and simply let this blow over.  Here we are three weeks later, with the same problem that only seems to be getting bigger.

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When I first heard this, I was furious at Coach McDaniels.  The thing that made the Broncos such a great coaching prospect was the fact that we had such a prolithic offense, led by a young and talented quarterback – and somehow McDaniels managed to screw all of that up.  He got rid of Offensive Coordinator Jeremy Bates, basically fixing something that wasn’t broken.  Then when the opportunity arised to get his coveted pupil Matt Cassel, it became clear that a 32-year-old first-time head coach was going with what was most familiar with him.  Stupid? Maybe, but understandable in this case. Nonetheless my blame was on McDaniels for that first day.

Then came Cutler’s reaction, which made me flip-flop and turn my frustration towards him.  I understand how initially he felt the way that many fans did, but he has to realize that this is a business, that at one time or another players’ names are brought up in trades.  Cutler hasn’t reached that elite untouchable status of Manning. Even Tom Brady, who is always compared to Manning as the best QB, was probably discussed in trades.

Broncos fan-wise, it’s been agonizing to have every trade scenario under the sun that involves your QB – none of them good.  If a team’s looking for a QB, they don’t have a good one to offer you.

Peter King offers an excellent recap of the situation.  He summarizes Cutler’s predicament the best by writing:

Maybe Cutler can’t take the dissing he feels from McDaniels, or maybe he’s fabricating the dissing to justify in his own mind going somewhere else. I don’t know. But I do know this: If I had the choice of Denver, Tampa Bay, Detroit and the Jets, and the Denver coach has worked successfully with Tom Brady and Matt Cassel, I’d be thinking very hard about not burning a bridge that can’t be reconstructed.

The more I’ve been reading, the more I think the person responsible for this mess is Cutler’s Agent Bus Cook.  Read this article and take that into account.  Bus Cook has been associated with four words: The Brett Favre Saga – need I say more?

Right now I wish that the NFL was playing games, because winning would likely cure this problem.  In the meantime, I just wish owner Pat Bowlen would call Cutler and McDaniels into his offense office, then walk out and lock the door behind him until these grown men can work out their issues.