Now this is going to require a little imagination since we are going into the world of hypotheticals.  One of the more common thoughts voiced around these parts, and elsewhere, is that Marshall is trying to get money now since his stats are going to drop with Kyle Orton at QB.  Follow me across the jump if you want to explore this tidea in the land of make believe.

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I am not going to try to say that Cutler is blameless in this situation or that he could not have handled things better, but I have been reading some of the posts/comments and have been surprised to see how quickly people have completely turned on him.  I appear to be part of a small minority that thinks that Cutler has not really done anything that egregiously wrong so far (obviously Monday could change things).

IMO, the biggest reason for this discrepancy is a difference in our perception about Cutler's complaints.  It seems that quite a lot of people are stuck on this idea that Jay Cutler thinks that he is untradeable, entitled to his spot, above the team, etc..  I just don't buy that basic premise.  I think Cutler was surprised initially and made comments about being shocked/hurt to hear his name came up in trade talks, but as he has subsequently said the issue for him is a matter of trust and the feeling that he was lied to by McDaniels and the Broncos organization. 

I don't know if Cutler is right to feel that way (and frankly he would be deservedly ripped for publicizing the details necessary to prove he is justified in his belief), but I do believe that it is an honest feeling. You may disagree or think it is a smokescreen and you may be right and all the speculation from experts and the comments from anonymous sources may be correct. But I am going to wait for Jay Cutler himself to say or do something before I change my mind.

Unfortunately if there is a lack of trust, it will not be too productive for the Broncos and Cutler to stay together.  Cutler is still a work in progress and needs refining and coaching to become a truly elite QB.  But a large part of successful coaching is convincing a player to have enough faith to make the coach's changes/adjustments even if the player does not see the short term gains.  Among players and coaches with no past history, the player can still have an unconcious fear/distrust of what he is being told and will resist the coaching.  If there is actual, active distrust of the coach by the player, I just don't see how they can coexist productively so unless things actually get resolved (not just patched up) I think it is best for both parties to go their separate ways.

For those who don't know, Jeff Jagodzinski is the current head coach at Boston College.  His name made the news recently when it came out that the Jets were interested in interviewing him for their head coaching vacancy.  The athletic director at BC has threatened to fire Jagodzinski if he goes on the interview, but latest accounts are that the interview will still take place on Monday.

This brings me to the first question:  Is the Boston College athletic director out of line in threatening to fire the head coach for interviewing for other positions?  I am guessing it has to depend in the exact details of the contracts and the discussions they had prior to signing the deal,  Jagodzinski's history is mixed between the NFL and college.  Jeff started out as an offensive line coach for Northern Illinois, LSU and  East Carolina before joining BC as their offensive coordinator for the 1997 and 1998 seasons.  From there, he jumped to the NFL, serving as the Packers TE coaches for several years before being relieved of those duties after the 2003 season.  He then spent two years in Atlanta as the offensive line coach working with Alex Gibbs.  At the end of that time, GB brought Jeff and his new found talents/schemes back to be their offensive coordinator in 2006.  A year later Jeff jumped to the college ranks and has been the head coach of BC for the past two years, going 11-3 the first year (with Matt Ryan) and then 9-5 this year.  The reason I brought up the whole history was to point out that it seems reasonable that Jagodzinski would have a clause that would allow him to return to the NFL as a head coach. 

The second question popped up as I was reading his bio.  I can understand how appealng the Jets might be to Jagodzinski since it would reunite him with Favre - though only for one season.  Then I began to wonder if he would be a good fit in Denver.  Obviously, his focus on the offensive side of the ball is a bit of a negative.  But that can be overcome if the coach and owner have an agreed upon philosophy of defense and a list of candidates for the DC position that meet that philosophy.  But on the positive side, his offensive philosphies seem to be based around a zone blocking scheme and an attacking passing game which is a perfect fit for the Broncos.  If this came to pass, I would like to see Jeremy Bates stick around as OC and learn some of the wrinkles that Coach Jagodzinski has added to the system.

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I know I am jumping ahead a bit and I am definitely not overlooking the Chiefs, but the recent fanposts from people at the Jets game got me excited.  I am flying down to Charlotte for the game on Dec 14 and would love to meet up with some other Broncos fans beforehand.  I will be meeting friends down there and I assume we will be tailgating (especially now that it has been moved to a 4 pm start).

Anyone else gonna be there and want to try and get together before the game?

Like most of you I have questions about decisions the Broncos have made in the past couple years - play calls, game plans, roster moves, etc.  All the media coverage in the world can't tell fans the reasons why teams make most of these decisions (In this case, this is not a knock on the media.  It is just the reality of teams' secrecy)

So my question is this - If you could be a fly in the wall in Shanahan's office and could hear the reasoning and back and forth behind the Broncos decisions but you could not repeat that info to anyone, would you want to know it?  Or would having that knowledge without being able to share it be torture?

We have all heard the stories about Brandon Marshall's off field troubles.  But I came across something today that I had never heard about before and I was hoping someone here would be able to fill me in with the details.  There was an article in the Orlando Sentinel about the relationship between Marshall and Jags WR Mike Walke, who played and roomed together at UCF.  It was a nice piece, but nothing special until I saw this quote

When Marshall took in his young sister's son, Walker helped watch him, too.

I have never heard anything about this before.  It sounds like it shows a different side of Brandon than the public has seen.  Anyone heard about this or know more? (Assuming the details are public of course.  I don't want to intrude on the Marshall family's privacy).

Sam Adams at the Rocky Mountain News has an excellent article related to the release of the movie "The Express: The Ernie Davis Story".  The article focuses on Davis's relationship with Little.  Davis recruited Little to follow him to Syracuse just as Jim Brown had recruited Davis.  All three wore the number 44 and each had an amazing career with Little breaking many of the records that were set by Jim Brown and subsequently broken by Ernie Davis.  The whole article is absolutely worth reading as is the video accompanying it (there is a link on the right side of the article to the video).  I will leave you with this quote from the article, but go read the entire thing.

"Floyd was probably the best of all of us in college," Brown said. "He doesn't get his due. The man should be in the (Pro Football) Hall of Fame. Here we are talking about Jim Brown and Ernie Davis, and there's Floyd Little - a three-time All-American who's probably better than both of them."

To be clear, Brown was talking about Little's college achievements but even that statement is remarkable considering that Jim Brown was probably the greatest all around college athlete of the last 75 years.

This is just a collection of things that have gone through my mind the past few weeks. 

1. I read the ESPN.com columns on the next wave of young QB’s. I loved the analysts there and elsewhere who complained that Jay Cutler appeared to force the ball late in the season last year when perhaps Cutler’s primary issue with his undiagnosed diabetes was that he did not have the zip on his throws. I wonder who else would appear to force their throws if the ball came out at only 80-90% velocity.
2. Tony Scheffler needs to step it up. He has made some nice good plays, but also some costly ones – most notably the fumble vs NO and the dropped TD vs Oakland. He is not on the field in goal line situations; Denver is using Graham, Nate Jackson and Lichtensteiger in the jumbo set which makes me think he may never be the (run) blocker that Denver wants.
3. On the other hand if Scheffler manages to win the starting job and Nalen gets healthy, all eleven offensive starters will be Broncos draftees or free agents they signed out of college. On the defensive side of the ball there are only three (Doom, Marcus Thomas and DJ) with three others seeing any time on defense (Paymah, Crowder and Moss). Looks like the 2009 draft will be focused on defense, like both the 2005 and 2007 drafts (and unlike the 2006 and 2008 drafts that focused on offense primarily)

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So both Chris Mortensen of ESPN and Jay Glazer of Fox Sports are reporting that Al Davis has decided to fire Lane Kiffin.  While this set of reports is a bit more ominous than the last (they say that Kiffin has been informed of the decision), there are two reasons I will wait to see it to believe it.  One is that this was a tough loss for the Raiders and it is a case where sleeping on it may actually calm Davis down from an emotional overreaction (aka pulling a Steinbrenner).  The other is that I don't see Davis firing Kiffin at all this season unless he thinks he can get away with not paying the rest of Kiffin's contract. Who knows, maybe Kiffin gave Davis the out he needed with his comments the last couple weeks (ala Larry Brown with the Knicks).