My First, Only and probably LAST comment on Cutler-Gate
 

Frankly I'm not even following this mess, and I've carefully avoided even reading these threads. But one thing is clear; this is an absolute, and complete failure of leadership on the part of McDaniels. Leaders know that when you transition into an organization or you bring others into yours, that it's absolutely imperative that you gain the trust of those you are going to be working with, especially if they're key people.

I don't care whether he thought Cutler should be here or not, McDaniels gets an F for his handling of this. And not only that, but Pat Bowlen gets one too. This guy should have pulled his pup aside 15 minutes after he first found out Jay and him were not immediately buddies and he should have laid down the law on what he expected. Obviously he hasn't.

Major tough times ahead for this franchise I think. As one who thought it was time for Shanahan to go...and I've not changed my mind on that...this was simply inexcuseable.

Maybe Josh still rights the ship, but right now I'm putting this guy pretty far down the list of people who should have gotten this job. The most bizarre thing is this; He coached in the best organizatoin in the NFL in New England. How does one do that and apparently learn absolutely nothing about how to run things?

Absolutely amazing...

I agree with your assessment entirely, aside from thinking perhaps Shanahan deserved the chance to work with the cap room he had perfectly set himself up for.

That aside, I can understand people wanting a change from Shanahan and this is a perfectly respectable take on the situation from that point of view. People who wanted Shanahan out seem married to the idea that McDaniels can't be wrong here, at least by and large on this board.

I stopped reading after "I'm not even following this mess." How can you assess a situation that you know nothing about?

Solid take. I agree. There is equal blame to go around here. Ultimately, the buck stops with Bowlen and I hold him accountable...... HIS OWN WORDS at Shanahan's last press conference yet he found a way to screw his own program only two month's after saying that.

Rex Ryan, Spagnuolo, Morris, and the guy from Minny would have all been better hires and we possibly would have taken huge steps forward this offseason, not the 18 steps back we've gone through.

Easy. I know business and how it's supposed to get done.

My only real comment on this (the songs post is just for fun right?) -

I agree with your assessment of Josh. F - WTF was he thinking? However I am equally shocked at the juvenile, nee, utterly hormonal Menopause-like behavior out of Cutler. Wow. You'd think at least his family and friends would be able to talk him down from a very ugly place he got himself wrapped into. Makes me question the head and balls that guy has. Do NOT need another headcase on this team. So, loved your athleticism but dude, get the **** off my team. Trade his double XX chromisome ass to Detroit/Hell... now.

You're 100% correct. Josh is too inexperienced to be given all this power, and all this money to spend.

Josh is drunk with power and has a "coach's son" mentality - authoritative, anti-star player approach.

It's Bowlen's fault for giving him all the power and letting him spend all the money.

I've chosen to play the fence despite supporting adamantly Cutler initially.

Even though it's naive to come to any kind of conclusion for our on the field performances this year, I do believe that Josh has followed and stayed committed to that "New England way" to a fault (I understand this is an assessment that only holds a month's weight). Beyond the signings of former Patriots and attempt at acquiring Matt Cassell, his Belichick method (a specific hybrid enigmatic/no BS approach) is quite the contrast to the Shanny way of running things we've become so accustom to. He's inevitably going to piss some people off, especially in this transition phase, until he's able to generate a roster that will 100% buy into his plan. He needs to accomplish this relatively quickly, as I don't foresee Bowlen giving him the leeway that he gave Shanahan. Hopefully, for all of our sake, he doesn't go the same route fellow Belichick disciples Eric Mangini and Romeo Crennel (and Charlie Weis to a lesser extent). Unfortunately, success on the head coaching level for exPatriot assistants appears to be the exception right now, not the rule.

if the guy starts the year 6-2, 7-1 or any kind of good start, irregardless of who's behind center...I wonder what this place will be like...

And we also wonder what it will be like if we go 4-12 or 5-11, how will that look?

The fact that both McDaniels and Xanders have expressed astonishment how the two sides could have such completely different interpretations of the Saturday meeting says a lot about both parties.

McDaniels doesn't seem to be aware of what the situation required, that is, assurances that Jay was 'the guy' and they had to put this all behind them. Cutler on the other hand has over reacted to everything, with a possible ulterior motive being a desire on the part of his scumbag agent to orchestrate a crisis with the real goal being lucrative a new contract.

If McDaniels isn't aware of this, and realistically I think he is now, in my mind it's just more evidence the guy is in over his head.

All of this will have been forgotten.

You may be right but to repeat what someone else wrote, saying that you're not following events and then in the next breath claiming that it is clear is not something they teach in How to Best Present an Argument 101.

The world will end.

You will have people that still can't let go and will make any excuse to pile on McDaniels...

we STILL have people on this board that can't drop the Plummer benching

IMHO, Cutler wanted a new contract or a trade. It didn't matter what McDaniels did or did not do, something was going to go wrong to justify the new contract or trade.

Don't you think it's a little strange that, what should have been at most, a minor misunderstanding or miscommunication of the type that happens a LOT in professional football has escalated into this gigantic thing? The only reason happened is one of two things: (1) Jay has the emotional maturity of a 13 year old; or (2) Jay and his agent are orchestrating things so that there IS a crisis. Similar drama hovers around players like TO all the time ("I feel bad. They dissed me. Blah Blah Blah") and Bret Farve when he is trying to finagle a big contract.

I opt for 2 although 1 is a non-trivial possibility. In either event, NOTHING, no rumor I have heard out of this whole mess, comes even remotely close to justifying Cutler turning what was at most a miscommunication into a crisis.

Turing this into a "McDaniels and Bowlen are idiots and can't do anything right" seems to me to be as overly dramatic as Jay's behavior appears to be.

It looks to me as if someone doesn't want things to work out. Things don't go this wrong very often when both parties are trying to work things out.

this whole thing is making me sad, but 25+ years of looking forward to football season is a lot more than the raider fans have had. i guess this gravy train had to end sometime....welcome to the "detroit" years everyone, see you in 50 years when my daughter brings Broncos 2059 Superbowl championship gear to my gravestone A LA red sox fans. This sucks. I have to live in the same area as raider fan till they move back to LA. It's gonna be a long 20 years, good thing I'm overweight, maybe I'll die early and it will save me the agony of having to watch films of the '98 Superbowl and whispering quietly to myself till I get dementia and start acting it out as well.... So here's my final word on the subject, **** pat bowlen! **** Mcdumbass! ****.....****......****!!!!!!!!!!!!! Hallelujah, and holy shyt!....wheres the Tylenol!

FYP.

And I really hope that everything works out well with McDaniels. I just have a feeling the Broncos are ****ed.

I don't need to read the specifics of this stuff to see what's going on but most of it's obvious from just looking at the topics on this site. Frankly it's to time wasting to digest it anyway. My POV is exclusively related to how leadership functions in any organization, but more specifically, in business.

Everything rises and falls on leadership. When leadership is brand new in an organization, those who are strong leaders excell at communicating with their people, especially key people. Hence my point; this is a radical failure in leadership.

It begins at the top, with Bowlen, who obviously failed to communicate some very important things to his new coach, but McDaniels following a potential HOF head coach should have known that he needed to be GREAT in communicating with his players, especially his pro bowl QB.

Both guys utterly failed in their leadership responsibilities, and whether or not Cutler is at fault too or not I could care less. It's about leadership at the top, where it begins.

The NFL is loaded with guys who are immature. As a coach, especially a head coach, it's YOUR responsibiity to know how to deal with them and be able to communicate. From a business perspective, that should be job 1 and something you MUST be able to handle. Cutler is probably far down the list of guys who are immature, so if he can't communicate properly with him, how will he handle the Brandon Marshalls of the world?