Seeing as how I live in the wild wild west, the Jay Cutler trade is just about all I’ve heard about for the past several days.
On the face of it, trading the face of the franchise for a journeyman-in-the-making and a few draft picks seems pretty daft. Would the Colts trade Peyton Manning for two number ones and whatever bum Tampa Bay has for a quarterback these days, for instance? I’m guessing no.
Then again, Jay Cutler is no Peyton Manning. He may never even be an Eli Manning. Hell, he may never even be an Archie Manning. But, he’s the closest thing the Broncos have had to a real franchise quarterback since the greatest quarterback who ever lived (as far as Broncos fans are concerned, anyway) hung up his cleats a decade ago.
On the other hand, these “trade a whole bunch of picks for one guy” trades rarely work out well for the team giving up the draft picks. It didn’t work well for Tampa when they traded for Keyshawn Johnson. And most famously, it didn’t help the Vikings when they double-mortgaged the farm to get Herschel Walker.
In fact, in the latter case, the trade very famously benefited the Cowboys, who dealt Walker to the Vikings for a bunch of dudes plus a pile of picks–then went on to use some of those dudes and those picks to build a Super Bowl dynasty.
Now, this is no Walker trade, for sure. Denver gets an extra first and third round pick this year, and another first round next year, and hopefully they can use those picks to shore up the worst defense in the NFL. But meanwhile, they have to muddle through at least a season with either Kyle Orton or Chris Simms under center. And let me tell you, no Bronco fan is looking forward to that.
So who is the biggest dumbass here? Currently, it’s looking like the Broncos, for sending their franchise player to the Bears for a stiff and some picks. But it may be two or three years before we know for sure.
However, in conclusion, FUCK KYLE ORTON.
The word coming down from the Chicago sports world is that this was a very good move for the Bears to make. The Bears haven’t particuarly had a quarterback in, oh, fifty years or so, and it’s hard to build a consistent franchise without a consistent QB. Also worth noting is that the picks aren’t super-valuable to the Bears, since the Bears are notoriously terrible at making picks. The general consensus appears to be that we traded two picks we just would have thrown away anyhow for a quarterback who, if not exactly the type of material ballads are written about, is at least competent.