Oakland Raiders, meet the new Oakland Raiders of the NFL: the Denver Broncos.
The lasting effects of yesterday’s decision to move QB Jay Cutler to the Chicago Bears in exchange for journeyman QB Kyle Orton, a first round pick in 2009 and 2010 plus a third rounder in 2009 will be felt for years to come.
Ever since John Elway retired, the Broncos lone missing piece on multiple occasions was at the QB position.
They tried Brian Griese, and that experiment lasted only a few years; they brought in Jake “the snake” Plummer, and while he was able to lead them to the No. 2 seed in 2005 and a trip to the AFC Conference Championship, his horrendous play vs. the Steelers was a reason that they were unable to advance back to the Super Bowl.
So they went out on draft day 2006 and landed Jay Cutler, their QB of the future. And just three years in, it’s evident that he was the becoming the player they had envisioned him to be when they aggressively moved up the NFL Draft board to snatch him.
But now he’s gone.
And what’s so curious about this is how on earth did Josh McDaniels get the power to make this move?
Because he supposedly has a system from New England?
He has no system. New England has the system, and the players.
In 2006, McDaniels first year as Belichick’s puppet, I mean New England’s offensive coordinator, the Patriots, having dealt Deion Branch, were rather average in the passing department and were forced to win games by playing stout defense, running the ball, and executing game plans to perfection.
The following year, realizing where they were lacking offensive firepower, they went out and landed Randy Moss, Wes Welker and Dante Stallworth and suddenly became the most prolific offense in NFL history.
Should he receive credit for that? I don’t think telling Brady to throw it deep to Moss or hit Welker on a short crossing route would be considered genius.
Last year was impressive. McDaniels deserves credit for getting backup Matt Cassel up to speed, and rattling off 11 wins in the process, but let’s face it—the system being run for Cassel was scaled back—he still had the best WR combo in the league (Moss and Welker), and the offensive game plan was the one Belichick has been running for years.
So McDaniels rode Belichick’s coattails to this position, which never should’ve been available anyway had team owner Pat Bowlen realized that it was Shanahan’s GM skills which were lacking, not his coaching ability.
But I understand. Maybe Shanahan didn’t want to relinquish his GM duties and gave an ultimatum that it was all or nothing.
But back to the question posed a short while ago: How did McDaniels, who’s 32 by the way, get put into a position to be THE deciding voice in the team’s football operations?
That’s a question that only the owner Bowlen can answer.
It’s obvious he was duped into believing he had just grabbed Belichick Jr., but unless Belichick, Brady, and the rest of the offensive weapons are coming over as well, this move is destined to end up for Mcdaniels like Crennel’s and Mangini’s did: with a pink slip.
So just how valuable is the compensation that the Broncos received for Cutler going to be?
This year’s choice is No. 18, and next year, assuming the Bears make a playoff run, will be somewhere in the early to mid 20′s.
I don’t have the numbers off the top of my head, but at last check, around 50 percent of all first round picks went on to succeed in the NFL. And that includes the players in the top 10 who are considered the premier players of the draft.
Would you give up a franchise QB, who’s only now entering his prime, for two mid to late first round draft choices and a third? Not a chance.
And although some are criticizing Cutler for not having a winning record, for having thrown more INTs than TDs in his career, and being shutout from the playoffs to this point, he was 13-1 when the Broncos gave up 21 points or fewer.
Think the Bears are ecstatic about that last stat? They’ve been known to keep teams under 21 points on more than a few occasions.
So it’s easy to see that had the Broncos focused their efforts on revamping its defense rather than pissing off their franchise signal caller, the path to playoff success—and beyond—was right around the corner.
Now, because McDaniels doesn’t give preferential treatment to his “star” players, something he learned in New England, from whom… oh yeah, a guy who had won three Super Bowls and been to four, the Broncos are now in complete rebuilding mode and the franchise has plummeted further than Citi’s stock in 2008.
There is one scenario however, that I don’t want to leave out, which would make this move an extremely favorable one for the Broncos.
If McDaniels can manage to locate a sixth rounder this year named Brady Tom, who goes from the practice squad in 2009 to the starter in week three of 2010, after Kyle Orton is hit so hard that internal bleeding puts him out for an extended period, and then the team rallies around this young signal caller and pulls out a Championship, it will prove to be an excellent move.
Of course, the likeliness of that happening is about 1,000,000,000 to 1.
So we’ll go with the safer bet: The Broncos will win five games this year and McDaniels will be gone by 2011.
And at some point owners will learn that when you’re buying an extension of Belichick, that’s all you’re getting, an extension; not the substance.
