In Defense of Jay Cutler: Why Most SPF Teams Still Don't Get It

I wish it hadn't come to this [trading Cutler]. I'm disappointed. . . . It's a sad day for one of the elite franchises in football and all the Broncos fans, and I'm sad - John Elway

The saga of Jay Cutler has mesmerized the NFL landscape just like Brett Favre did last year.  Now that he is in Chicago, the hue and cry from the sports media about Cutler is pretty negative right now.  Even his new city has a few critics of Cutler.

Let's bust a few myths:

Myth #1:  Cutler is a prima donna - The guy has an ego, but any good athlete - especially an NFL QB - needs one.  Cutler does not fit the prima donna mold at all.  He was ignored by the big schools in recruiting which is how he ended up at Vandy.  He spent four years keeping the Dores in games while getting shellacked.  Then, he goes to the Broncos being picked behind the more heralded Vince Young and Matt Leinhart.  Then, he finds out he had Type 1 diabetes.  (Read Rick Reilly's glowing piece on Cutler from last season.)

He overcomes all of this, becomes the heart of a team still enamored with John Elway, and shoots past both Young and Leinhart who can't even start for their respective teams.  Oh yeah - he also has a pro bowl season.

Prima donna - um, no.

Myth #2:  Cutler isn't that good - We already covered a lot of this in the last point, but let's try to count the number of young QBs (less than 5 years in the NFL) that are starting every game and consistently leading their teams into playoff contention.  Eli Manning, Ben Roethlisberger, Philip Rivers, and Tony Romo.  After that, there are a few that have shown some early promise like Joe Flacco, Matt Ryan, Jason Campbell, Kyle Orton, and Matt Cassel.  The rest of the NFL QBs of note are all long time veterans.

Taking out the first group of four, the Bears who had Orton traded for Cutler and the Redskins who have Campbell tried to trade for him.  (Cassel, of course, backed up future Hall of Fame QB, Tom Brady in New England before his trade to KC.)

By any honest rating, Cutler is one of the top 5 young QBs in the NFL.

(If you don't believe us, read from the Denver Post.)

Myth #3:  This is all Cutler's fault - Here's the issue that many don't understand.  NFL players hope to have three significant contracts during their careers:  a big rookie deal, a big superstar deal about 4 or 5 years into a career (this is usually the biggest one), and one final one on the last leg of a career.  Any one of these deals can set a player for life financially.  Players hope to get two of them or all three.

So far, Cutler has the first one, sort of.  He did get decent first round money, but he knows that his next deal is the most important of his career.  Former Bronco coach Mike Shanahan loved Cutler and helped make him a Pro Bowler.  Cutler knew he was a priority and one of the NFL's brightest stars.  Going forward, even with Shanahan's firing, everyone around the NFL saw Cutler's presence in Denver as a major plus for their next coach.

Why did Denver let it come down to a battle of wills between these two men?

Everyone, that is, but their next coach.  Josh McDaniels gave Cutler a vote of no confidence by pursuing Matt Cassel in a trade.  If you are Cutler, how are you supposed to feel?  Any reasonable person would say that Cutler has proven more than Cassel.

In the end, this isn't about emotion for Cutler - it's business.  If your new coach and old owner has already told you to your face one thing and then tried to trade you for a QB with far less of a resume than you have, you have to understand that you aren't the priority in Denver any more.  For a young QB looking for a long career, that's a scary position.

This means that you might be the scapegoat rather than the hero.  This means that your expected big payday might never comes - at least not in Denver.  Why should a young QB who has done everything the right way up to now put his career and financial future in jeopardy when he knows he has the most value?

It might be Cutler's fault, but McDaniels set it all into motion. 

Myth #4:  Josh McDaniels handling of Cutler was just "a rookie mistake" - Maybe, but we don't think so.  Watch this clip and tell us if McDaniels actually sounds sad about Cutler's trade to the Bears: 

McDaniels moves that set into motion Cutler's trade reflect a deeper and troubling trend that owners and GMs didn't expect when they started hiring under 40 coaches to run their teams.  (The model is Mike Tomlin in Pittsburgh who has already won a Super Bowl.  Of course, he has a good young QB that he inherited - hmmmm.)

The theory of hiring a young coach makes sense.  The current NFL pay structure rewards top rookies with a large percentage of the salary cap.  Rookies traditionally struggle with the finer points of the NFL, not the physical part of it.  The young coach theory is that a young guy can "relate" to the young player to inspire him to be a more effective player during his first three years in the league, which allows the teams to get more value from them.

However, here's the horrible flip side - young coaches also have ego and experience issues just like young players.  They don't want to be questioned.  They don't want to take on problems.

Don't believe us?  How about listening to Matt Bowen of the National Football Post:

So why do [the new NFL coaches] keep coming up in the media, and why am I still writing about them?

Easy. They are the modern day dictators of the NFL. Young coaches with little background as head men, and for Mangini, he’s already on his second stint as the boss after being shown the door by the New York Jets.

New coaches in this league are like that new kid in high school who shows up in the middle of the year and starts trying to run the hallways. They’re a pain to work with, and everything you were used to, well, you can throw that out the window because things are changing, my friends.

Still, don't believe it?  We've seen this in Tampa where the young Rasheed Morris regime has already run off long time vets like Derrick Brooks and Warrick Dunn.  Morris didn't want his authority questioned in the locker room.  He wanted a chance to be the only voice.

Let's read the words of the columnist who wrote the "sour grapes" column on behalf of Morris and the Bucs, John Henderson of the Tampa Tribune:

You wanted Cutler? That's the same guy who threw a tantrum when learning the Broncos had talked seriously of including in a three-way deal to the Bucs. He put his house in Denver up for sale. He wouldn't return calls from his coach and Broncos owner Pat Bowlen.

That doesn't sound like the kind of leader that can take a team to a championship.

It was also interesting that few (any?) of his former teammates stood up for him. Compare that to the way the Bucs are rallying behind McCown.

None of us know for sure whether McCown packs the goods to win consistently in the NFL. We do know, though, that if you put him side-by-side with Cutler, it's no question who has handled this situation better.

McCown has waited five years to get this chance to play, which maybe gave him the maturity to handle it when word leaked about the original trade attempt for Cutler. He responded by studying his playbook and working to get better.

With all due respect to Henderson, the NFL isn't a contest of who handles off the field "situations better."  Furthermore, comparing Luke McCown, a late round journeyman, to Jay Cutler, a first rounder who developed into a Pro Bowl QB, is a total joke.  Luke McCown has accomplished NOTHING at the NFL level.  Lauding McCown for being patient is like lauding the sky when it turns blue.  McCown has zero leverage in the NFL.  He's lucky to be on a roster right now.  Of course, he will be patient.

The Bucs are hoping that Mike Tomlin's excellence has rubbed on his "protege" Raheem Morris

It can't make Bucs fans feel any better when Henderson says that McCown will likely get support from a veteran pickup "like Byron Leftwich, Rex Grossman, Patrick Ramsey or Kyle Boller" according to Henderson's Buc sources.  That's gotta make everyone in Tampa jump for joy!

At least David Moulton of the Naple News (someone who doesn't have to play up to his home town team) sets the record straight:

Would getting Cutler guarantee the Bucs a Super Bowl? No. Will not having a QB guarantee that they have no shot at winning one anytime soon? Yes.

The last six Super Bowls have been won by Tom Brady, the Manning brothers and Roethlisberger. Not a lot of “projects” in that group.

Thank you for just a little logic, something that is missing too often.

Josh McDaniels, like everyone else in the NFL from GMs to coaches to players, have to look out for their own careers first.  He sees Cutler as a player who can make or break him.  He knows that his calling card is offense.  If Cutler plays worse (and the team as well) under McDaniels, the coach will be the scapegoat.  Even though the Broncos missed the playoffs, expectations for 2009 remain high since it took an unprecedented collapse for the Broncos to miss the past playoffs.

Owner Pat Bowlen, much like the Glazers in Tampa, took a big step when each ran off their old, experienced coach for a young kid.  I don't think either expected their new young coaches to circle the wagons so quickly, but they did.  One of them ran off a franchise QB, and the other might have prevented that same franchise QB from coming to his team.

(We think McDaniels has overplayed his hand with his handling of Cutler.  The Denver media are already declaring his honeymoon to be over.  A sub-.500 might find him getting the Billy Gillispie treatment.)

One thing is for sure, Jon Gruden would have grabbed Cutler in a heartbeat if he were still coaching the Bucs.  So, Bucs fans, would you rather have Raheem Morris coaching Luke McCown or Jon Gruden coaching Jay Cutler?  We think we already know the answer.

Myth #5: Cutler isn't worth the trouble - Peyton Manning.  Drews Brees.  Matt Ryan.  Tony Romo.  There are 13 teams in the SPF Footprint, and only four have QBs that are playing at an all pro level.  In the meantime, one of the best young QBs, through a most bizarre set of circumstances, was made available to the entire league.

It shouldn't be a shock that one of the NFL's most storied franchises, the Chicago Bears, saw the wisdom in trading for him.  After all, the Bears have had to stand in the shadows for more than a decade watching their rival, the Green Bay Packers, become the toast of the league thanks to QB Brett Favre.  Cutler, widely considered the next Favre - both in ability and swagger, was worth their current starting QB, two #1s, and another draft pick.  

This was an easy call, and one that several other SPF teams should have made.  Of the teams that have the four QBs listed earlier - Dallas, New Orleans, Indy, and Atlanta - those players are the bedrock of each franchise.  Even the Redskins who have a solid young QB made a call to Denver about Cutler.

(We will give two teams a pass in the Cutler sweepstakes - Tennessee and Miami - because both of them have plans in place.  Both have strong veteran QBs that guided them to division titles last season and potentially capable young QBs waiting behind them.  Simply put, these teams couldn't afford to upset their long term plans.)

Ok, so let's look at the rest of our teams:

Tampa Bay - At the moment, they have Luke McCown as their starting QB

Carolina - An emotionally-wounded Jake Delhomme sits under center

Jacksonville - David Garrard (whoopee)

Houston - Matt Schaub (hurrah)

St Louis - Marc Bulger (like Delhomme, he's on the downside)

Cincinnati - Carson Palmer (an injury in waiting)

SPF defies anyone, except maybe Cincy if Palmer stays healthy or Carolina who should maybe give Delhomme another chance, to defend these teams for not moving heaven and earth to get Cutler.

In each case, getting Cutler would have provided a significant shot in the arm to these teams.  So why didn't they pull the trigger?  It's pretty simple.  Bringing Cutler on board creates pressure on the current coaching staff to win right away.  Too often, pro coaches would rather control expectations than raise them because they realize they could be the victim of not meeting them.

In the end, most of our guilty 6 (those teams that made no attempt to get Cutler even though they needed him) will ever have to pay the piper.  Local scribes like John Henderson (linked above) will do their best to cover for them because that's how it works.

The owners will feel it in the pocket book, however.  In each of the six cases, there may be very few reasons to follow these teams other than fan inertia.

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