2
Apr
2009
Cutler floats east in disgrace
By TheDarkHorse
The long, dull saga of Jay Cutler’s divorce from the Denver Broncos may soon end with the Washington Redskins sending two high draft picks (and possibly Jason Campbell) to Denver. Washington and Cutler deserve each other. While the Bucs or Vikings (or another NFC team) could enter the mix, it’s the Skins who fit the profile of a team willing to repeatedly sell the farm for a big name.
The league has changed so remarkably over the past 20 years. Perhaps this was always true, but today’s NFL is ruled by greed and selfishness. Over and over, the league is tarnished by the growing disloyalty between the players and their teams. Both are at fault, but it is the fans who go hungry, left in tangled shreds along the roadside. How long will this equation work in an economy that spirals violently downward like a burning meteor toward an unkowing earth? Ticket prices rise while the product on the field is increasingly watered down with more teams and more games added to a schedule that already leaves most “stars” injured by season’s end.
I won’t waste any time rooting for Jay Cutler, or the team that picks him up.
In the past six months, we’ve seen one NFL player destroy a human life in a DUI accident, and another SHOOT HIMSELF in a bar. In both cases, the idea of representing one’s team, one’s city–at the very least, something greater than oneself–means nothing.
We are hard-pressed to find an athlete worth caring about.
Jay Cutler inspires no such feelings–he will be a memory soon enough.
He will float off like we all will–vanishing into the night. His achievements: dust.
As Marty Schottenheimer once said to his defense, in huddled silence along the Browns’ sideline in Cleveland Municipal Stadium–in a far better time than this: “There’s a gleam, men… A gleam… A Let’s get the gleam.”
His message is lost today. Lost on Cutler. Lost on the frothing owners. Lost from city to city, in a widening cloud.
Go quietly.
If Cutler goes to Washington it will be huge news across the NFL, and the Redskins will be picked (again) as favorites to win the NFC. But after all the fanfare, this move will turn out to be yet another in a long line of colossal failures of the Dan Snyder era. Snyder has consistently shown that he’s willing to mortgage the future of the franchise for a big-name player or coach – from Deion Sanders to Steve Spurrier to Bruce Smith to Joe Gibbs to Albert Haynesworth (where there may have been some shady dealings) – with complete disregard for the salary cap, or the long-term implications for his team. He’ll probably give up Jason Campbell, 2 first round picks, and his first born son to acquire Cutler.
The problem is, Snyder literally thinks he’s playing fantasy football, and seems to forget that football, more than any other sport, is a TEAM game. To compete in the NFL, you need to build a team over time through hard work, chemistry and consistency. If you overhaul the roster every 3 years, it doesn’t matter who’s playing/coaching … it’s simply not an environment that you can win in. And throw an immature Jay Cutler into that situation, and I just can’t see this turning out well for either party.
Oh, and by the way, when Washington drafted Jason Campbell in ’05, they gave up a 1st, 3rd & 4th round pick to acquire the pick. Guess who they made that trade with? Los Broncos. How’s that for irony?
Trust me, as a Giants fan, I’m thrilled to have Snyder steering the Redskins’ ship. Keep making those moves Danny Boy … do your thing!