What?

So it appears, with evidence larding the interstubtubes, that the Broncos' new pair of Big Young Brains in Charge actively tried to trade Jay Cutler for Matt Cassel.

Let's get something straight first: up until about 24 hours ago, I was a big fan of what Mickey D and Colonel Xanders were putting out there. I loved the Dawkins signing. Sure, he may have lost a step, but a guy who brings it the way he does can be an invaluable part of re-shaping this defense, and he forces fumbles. Led the Eagles in that category only last year.

Renaldo Hill is a solid young player, (a healthy) Correll Buckhalter can be a cog in short yardage situations, the long snapper is slightly larger than our old one, and that's fine because I think we needed to get bigger across the board. He also poses for photos with chicks in bars, which is solid in many important ways. Andra Davis is a good tackler. Colorado State grad and Beloved Ram Football Hero David Anderson, assuming the Texans don't match the offer sheet, can morph into another Brandon Stokely. And they did it all without overspending.

But then...



Matt Cassel may be a good NFL quarterback. He had a good year in '08, even though he took a ton of sacks playing behind a pretty fine pass-blocking line and was throwing to some of the best wideouts in the league (although to be fair, so was #6).

But man, I just don't buy it. I don't know why. I seriously don't think this guy is a superstar in the making or anything the way people have set him up to be, and while his stats are pretty similar--and in some cases, well below--Cutler's, his arm and overall athleticism aren't even in the same postal code.

So for a career backup who had basically one excellent half-season in the NFL, would you give up a guy who, though he's definitely something of a diva, is widely considered to be one of the best young QBs in the league already? Of course you wouldn't. Even you aren't that fucking stupid.

But the Boy Geniuses didn't just consider it, they worked to make it happen. And the worst part? They failed.

That's right. It would have been better for the Denver Broncos if this asinine, proposed three-way trade had actually happened. Because now, you've got a stampy Cutler actively agitating to be let go, no Cassel and no better option. Way to cause a huge-ass problem by not making a smaller mistake, you two.

It just boggles. What the fuck? What could they possibly have been thinking? What's the plan, here? Piss off your temperamental young star in effort to toughen him up, as some are suggesting? That's nonsensical. Even if they were only entertaining offers and not initiating them, as Adam Schefter said yesterday, how can they not be smarter than that?

Or--and this could be the one thing that ends up excusing this--maybe they know something that we don't.

A little story. Now that I've been outed as an official (former) member of the news media, and now that the outlet for which I had been employed is a mere memory, I can share a bit of gossip from my ex-boss.

Said ex-boss knew a lot of people around town. He'd been at the Rocky, and in Denver, off and on since the early '80s. One of his acquaintances was former Bronco kicker Rich Karlis, who'd become a success in business following his barefooted career. His job with Qwest brought him into contact with Cutler via Cutler's television show--and ol' Rich said that Jay the Diabetic couldn't take the sound stage without pounding red wine. And that he ditched the final episode of the season, leaving Channel 4 (I think it was) in the lurch.

He was replaced by Brandon Marshall, who Karlis said was a gem of a dude, but I think the gist was that Karlis thought he was a complete head case.

It's third-hand info from a guy who missed wide right a lot, but if it's true it hints at some pretty serious problems with ol' Jay. Type 1 diabetics who drink more than a very small, measured amount can have massive health problems--the House has a very close friend whose ex was a diabetic alky, and that shit can wreak havok on your system.

Which begs the larger question: is The Savior a drunk?

I'm not throwing stones here, Lord knows. I drink. Frequently, too frequently, to excess, and often alone in a closet, crying (that last part isn't true).

But I'm not diabetic. I'm also not the quarterback of the Denver Broncos, a man burdened with the hopes and dreams of football nerds like myself, a man who makes millions of fucking dollars a year to not do stupid shit. And I recently got a haircut.

We'll see how this all pans out. But right now, this is the biggest mistake of the early run of our own Mile High Version of "The Patriot Way."
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Tradition Tuesday: It's In the Way That You Use It

Yes. This most certainly could, perhaps should, be a post that falls under the category of "music and sports," but let's face facts here: We don't collect gigantic paychecks for always travelling down Predictable Parkway. This is, after all, the House of Georges, wherein we lease a rough focus to a tenant known as the rivalry between the Kansas City Chiefs and the Denver Broncos. If you've never taken the tour, Cecil and Old No. 7 wave the blue-and-orange flag; I root for the guys two states to the east. The nature of this rivalry, like any in the league, came into what it is like any other annual grudge match(es): bitter hatred and a long history of either-way beatdowns to make that hatred even bitterer. Our contribution? A little something we call The Tradition, wherein we dedicate chunks of our falls and winters to visiting one another's venues, and typically watching a visting-team loss. We throttle our livers with simmering vials of yard beer, cram multiple meals into pre- and post-game tailgates, and of late, we've let the wives have a tiny bit of pull on which games they're "allowed" to attend. That's all about to change, though, and it will in fact be change for the better. Change that capitalizes the "grand" in grand ol' times. That change, my friends, starts with the first Tradition Tuesday -- our often-times weekly state of the rivalry address -- installment of 2009.

Before digging into this post, I looked deep into the HoG archives, almost certain that I'd find very few early-calendar-years TTs, and my suspicions were correct. January, whether or teams are involved or not, is typically twisted with the post-holiday hangover, reflection of our clubs' seasons, and some shifty excitement for playoff football. By the time we're in mid-February, the Super Bowl is over, teams are wrapping up coaching-staff, and in the occasional case general-manager, changes, and before we can say "Jiminy Christmas," the NFL Combine (quickly followed by the draft) has snuck up on us. Coupled with the start of the baseball season, and of course those insane hockey playoffs 'round the corner, we must quickly process a lot of information that we sort of just finished processing for consecutive months. It is a tangled web, but we happily wrap our non-thorax-havin' selves up in it, and for good reason.

Now. Before we move ahead, let's summarize, as briefly as possible, what transpired in the past 10 months.

For Team Denver, 2008 was a chance to accomplish a number of things:

1) Shed any sliver of skin leftover from the Travis "T-Hen" nightmare.

2) Establish a new brand of Bronco running game -- one that, over the course of the season, eventually soaked up one-seventh of the roster -- that was orchestrated by a mix of a new play-caller, a coming-out signal-caller, and a re-tooled, impressive-ish looking offensive line.

3) (Perhaps) fake out the oppositions with said new brand, and go hogwild with the passing game, due largely to the new line and the brink-of-blowing-up quarterback.

4) Bring back the fierce reputation of an orange-crush defense, that, regardless of uniform color, has been, over the years, a big game-day factor.

5) To accomplish number four, great leaps were required both in terms of a still-newish defensive coordinator in Bob Slowik, and, in my opinion, poor drafting in both 2006 and 2007.

6) Regain some respectability on the special-teams front, and certainly not least

7) Foster and take full advantage of the opportunity of the aforementioned signal-caller taking advantage of both his third year in the pros, and his third year under then-Head Coach Mike Shanahan.

Whew. If that wasn't a mouthfull, I don't know what is.

I mean, in all honesty, it makes sense that Denver had the epic collapse that they did. As a Bronco outsider, that is a huge-anic list. It really is. It's really no wonder that their epic collapse of a three-game lead, three-games-to-win-out failure was a failure. They truly had their work cut out for them. Now, when you factor in the bizarre general-manager happenings/non-happenings and the firing of Mike Shanahan, I can't really comment; I'm sure Pat Bowlen, a sound, competent football owner has a much stronger laid-out football-operations agenda than I could ever dream up.

On the other side of this particular rivlary, however, the Kansas City Chiefs also had a number of things to accomplish:

1) Prove that the post-2005 (tampering or not) hiring of Herman Edwards to be the head football coach was either a) a mistake, or b) not.

2) Prove that the continued employment of Carl Peterson as General Manager/Chief Executive Officer/President of Football Operations was either a) a mistake, or b) not.

3) Prove that drafting Alabama quarterback Brodie Croyle in the third round of the 2006 pro-football draft was either a) a mistake, or b) not.

4) Show that, by virtue of continuing to employ Defensive Coordinator Gunther Cunninghame was either a) a decision based on franchise loyalty, or b) a mistake.

5) Show that the retention of running back Larry Johnson, despite recent injuries and previous off-the-field circumstances was either a) wise, or b) not.

6) Display that the already-mentioned "rebuilding proclamation," regardless of the level of public admittance was either a) something that could be developed under the leadership of Herman Edwards, b) not something that could be achieved under any head coach, or c) a complete waste of time for all parties involved.

7) Display that, regardless of going from 9-7 with a playoff appearance to 4-12, with (obviously) no post-season, that things would in fact turn around for the Chiefs in 2008.

I don't know how more-professional sports bloggers might sum up one through seven, but for me, nothing spells drastic failure more than posting a 2-14 record. Yes, you include injuries. Yes, you include, if you absolutely must, the strength of schedule. And yes, if you really, really must, you include players lost in the previous off-season. The bottom line though, is that nothing excuses a 2-14 season. Not unless your team colors are blue and silver and your team takes the field in Michigan, and your team's field is named after the country's leading automobile maker.

The bottom line is that 2008 was, in its own particular ways, an absolute debacle for both teams represented here inside the House of Georges. They both sucked rotten lemons, yet they both have already, prior to the Combine even, undergone massive changes as clubs of American football. And we, experts that we always have been, shall dive into said changes prior to the week's end.
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