Mon Mar 16, 2009 12:41 pm EDT
Maybe
Josh McDaniels will turn out to be a great head coach. Maybe he'll go on to win
five Super Bowls and make everyone in Denver forget Mike Shanahan.
But it's really, really hard to see that from here.
In his first two months on the job, McDaniels's lone accomplishment as Denver head coach has been to alienate the most important player in the franchise. Forget the issue of who's right and who's wrong, the bottom line is that Jay Cutler, the franchise quarterback, now seems to hate McDaniels and has officially asked to be traded.
That's not good. In fact, it's a giant step backwards. Part of being head coach in the NFL today is soothing bruised egos, and even if Cutler is being a baby (and he absolutely is), he's still the quarterback you have, and you've still got to find a way to make it work. So far, McDaniels has failed colossally.
Costing the company one of its most valuable assets is generally not want you want to do when you start working somewhere. It's like being hired at McDonalds headquarters and immediately injecting salmonella into all the Big Macs. It's like being hired at Sterling Cooper, and on your first day, slapping Don Draper in the face and then sleeping with his wife.
You just wouldn't do that. He's your star. You need him happy. At the very least, you need him to be willing to continue working there.
Eventually, who knows, Josh McDaniels might actually do something positive for the Broncos organization. He hasn't yet, though. All he's done is take the Broncos a huge step closer to reverting to the post-Elway era of shuffling mediocre quarterbacks.
Shutdown Corner is an NFL blog edited by Matthew J. Darnell. Email him, and follow him on Twitter.

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It's pathetic how spoiled these little punks are. That goes for every major sport.
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Cutler has also handled this in a very disappointing way. If Cutler has been in the league 10 years, made it to 5 pro-bowls with multiple winning seasons and solid playoff play, then you can say "I'm the franchise, I'm a permanent piece of the puzzle." You made it to one pro-bowl....ooooooohhhh. Don't act all surprised that your name is the subject of trade rumor.
Especially with a new coach in town.
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As we learned from some recent reporting over at ProFootballTalk, turns out Bus Cook has a great solution to all these problems he is exacerbating:
Give Cutler a big, fat new contract!
Shocker!
So now we find out this isn't about respect, or loyalty, or anything so grandiose. It's about money, plain and simple. It's about a taking an opportunity to beat up on a rookie head coach to satisfy Bus Cook's greed and Jay Cutler's arrogance.
And once again, as both the Packers and Jets found out, it's a slimy con artist named Bus Cook at the root of it all.
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Back to Jay Cutler. I personally know what it's like to have people who you trust, stab you in the back. You're thinking that everything is fine, going great and everyone is sync with each other. Then, out of the blue, it hits the fan and nothing but shock and awe are going through you. He was going along with the program and next thing you know, he's possibly being traded for Matt Cassel.
Which is fine because trades, be it that they are good or bad are a part of football. Same as baseball, basketball and hockey, (soccer is not a sport, so no need to talk about MLS trades). I understand why he's mad, the Broncos totally threw him into the fire. Being from Massachusetts, I'm a Patriots fan, however, I like other teams. The Broncos happen to be 1 of those teams.
Why they got rid of Shanahan is beyond me. Shanahan is the head coach and everyone is with the program. McDaniels comes in and the place is in upheavel. Again, I'm in Jay Cutler's corner and will back him up.
Once again, I personally know what it's like to be talked about behind your back, you don't have a clue what's happening and you think that everything is going fine and then everything comes out in the open and then your head is spinning and the trust that you had is suddenly gone and you become a very guarded person.
You then realize that the only people that you can trust is your family, parents, siblings etc... I hope that he gets traded and goes back and beats the Broncos 100-0. So you know what, GO JAY CUTLER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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You can't say how great Cutler is out of one side of your mouth, and then say he'll be traded for pennies on the dollar out the other side. Not to mention everyone knows this year's crop of draft QBs is mediocre.
If Cutler is as great as he and his agent think he is, Cook and Cutler better line up one of the most amazing trades in history. If they want him to be the highest paid player in the league (which they do), the trade asking price is gonna be very, very high.
I'm no GM, but I can't see trading him for anything less than a 1st, a 2nd, and an elite starter on the d-line. And probably some middle to late rounders from next years draft as well. If Cleveland wants him, anything less than Quinn, Shaun Rogers, and at the LEAST a position switch in RD 1 is necessary (but hardly sufficient).
If he's so good and irreplaceable as MJD says, well, then ya better pay up, Detroit (or Cleveland) fans...
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http://www.theklowntimes.net
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