There will be an interesting twist in the third week of preseason this year, when the Chicago Bears travel to Denver to play the Broncos. If only for the first quarter, we will see Jay Cutler wearing a Bears uniform, throwing to his unimpressive wide receivers who are being covered by the new Bronco secondary.
On the other side, Kyle Orton will get a chance to play against his former team as well, and stare Brian Urlacher down for the first time outside of practice.
As most fans are aware of, during the Jay Cutler trade talks, there were many teams interested. Most of the interested teams had a starting quarterback already in place from the 2008 season, obviously of varying ability levels.
The Washington Redskins were especially active in their negotiations for Cutler. This would have included trading away current starter Jason Campbell.
The Redskins could have found themselves in a dilemma eerily similar to the Jay Cutler situation. Try to trade the current quarterback away for another one, miss on the deal, and be stuck with the old quarterback who now knows he’s expendable.
However, Campbell had “the right” reaction to the news. He expressed in several interviews that he had confidence in his abilities, that he wanted to continue to help the Redskins win and that he would use the trade talk as extra motivation for the upcoming season.
If only Cutler had taken that approach. As I see it, it has become HIS loss, not so much the Broncos’ loss.
As the Jay Cutler situation continues to boil, more and more high-profile people around the NFL are speaking out. One of them was Denver hero, John Elway.
The man who Cutler once compared himself to has taken a dim view of the current quarterback’s decisions, saying “I understand Jay’s feelings got hurt, but it’s too bad it has got to where it is. I wish Jay would have got some better advice from whoever he was getting advice from.”
“Obviously, there was a lack of communication somewhere to where it blew this thing up to where it has got to now…I’m sad for both sides.”
The Denver Post, among other local sources are reporting that the ongoing feud between Jay Cutler and Josh McDaniels took another step on Saturday when the two exchanged “words” face-to-face.
There are differing reports of how the conversation went, but the best that can be said is that the two sides agreed to regroup and continue conversations.
Cutler was in Denver overseeing a real estate deal. There are no indications of whether or not he will show up for the first team meeting, which is scheduled for tomorrow, Monday.
Even though voluntary offseason training activities do not officially begin until Monday, Brandon Stokley and Matt Prater were “hanging out” at the Broncos’ Dove Valley training facility after arriving two days early.
This proves that Jay Cutler is in the overwhelming minority. Just about everyone else is excited to get going again and to meet Coach McDaniels and get out on the practice field again.
An important test for the Cutler situation will be his attendance at the OTA’s starting Monday. If he does not show up, there will be even more questions raised about his commitment to the team and it could sour his image in the locker room even further.
A Denver TV station (KCNC) reported that Jay Cutler, Pat Bowlen, and Josh McDaniels participated in a 3-way conference call on Tuesday to begin the road to a peaceful and respectful relationship.
KCNC reported that McDaniels was firm with Jay. Josh told Cutler that the Broncos never meant to trade him, and reminded him that every player on the roster was being evaulated, and Jay should not take it personally.
There were no details as to how Cutler reacted, but he will be in Denver for the optional offseason workouts next week.
The Denver Broncos official website is reporting that a meeting has been scheduled between disgruntled quarterback Jay Cutler and rookie head coach Josh McDaniels.
This news was reported by official team spokesman Patrick Smyth. The extremely brief statement read, “The Denver Broncos are not trading Jay Cutler. Period.”
The meeting will be sometime next week when Cutler returns to Denver from his home in Nashville, Tennessee.
As of right now, it looks like Cutler will have to get along with McDaniels. That could all change, based on how the meeting goes, but we will have to wait and see.
