I have never been a big Jay Cutler fan, as a matter of fact I was puzzled by Mike Shanahan when he made the selection. 

I was dumbfounded and a few moments later completely petrified as I realized what this draft pick meant for my beloved Broncos, it meant that a quarterback who had won over 75 percent of his games while in a Broncos’ uniform, had his days numbered, his incredibly fragile ego had been bruised, he will never be the same and the Broncos were in full rebuilding mode.

Now, please do not misunderstand me, I was no huge fan of Jake Plummer either, but unlike most Bronco fans I had come to the realization and acceptance that old No. 7 was never coming back through the tunnel and give us one more season.

Actually, I had begun to shun away from those fans who were always comparing Jake to John Elway.  I had begun to realize the error of always living in the past and my refusal to let go.

This is why I find myself writing this article.  In light of all the reactions to the Jay Cutler trade and how some fans had labeled him a drunk and a jerk (including myself), I did some digging for information.

What I have found is that most of the people, including myself, had formed our opinion about Jay, strictly based on what some writers had written.  I realized that this so called unbiased reporters had pegged this kid as a person with a poor attitude just because he would not jump through their hoops and play nice to them when he didn’t feel like it.

This, above all, really got me thinking.  I started to look at all the offseason moves the Broncos have made and I tried to make sense of them all, because like a lot of you, I was really confused. 

Like I mentioned before I was not a Cutler fan and I was kind of happy to see him go. I always thought he was too erratic and inaccurate to be an effective QB for my Broncos.

But as I heard the myriad of excuses and reasons of why McDaniels made the trade I realized that he just never wanted to coach Cutler and decided to use him to send the team a very important message: NO ONE IS SAFE.

Then a couple of my friends’ reaction to the trade got me thinking.  One said that he was happy to see Cutler go because even though he threw 22 TDs he threw 18 picks and his record as a starter was 17 and 22 (something like that).

My other friend said that the numbers were misleading, because when the defense played well–and we’re talking middle of the pack here–he was 13 and 3.

I thought about this and went back and watch all of the 18 picks and realized something big.  While Cutler did throw 18 interceptions as I see it, eight of those weren’t his fault. 

Hang in there with me for a little bit as I explain what I mean.

If we had a middle of the pack defense and I mean a defense ranked somewhere between 13th and 17th place, I could see five picks not happening. 

You see, as I watch Cutler make the throws and I tried to decipher the plays the Broncos were running I came to the conclusion that, if we had a good defense we wouldn’t have ran those plays. 

They were high-risk high-reward plays; because our defense could not get a stop, the Broncos had to score on every possession, every drive to stay in the game. If our defense could get a stop every once in a while we probably would’ve run the ball and just played the field position game.

Which brings me to the other three picks.  These were a little harder, for on the remaining three occasions, the ball was thrown on third down and five or less to go. 

Once again we ran high-risk high-reward plays because our backfield situation was so distraught. If we had a decent running game like the Broncos of old we probably would’ve run the ball in those situations.

So, was the Cutler trade justified?  No, and I will tell you why.  Even though I did not  like the guy, as I watched the games for a second time, I saw that him and Brandon Marshall, Eddie Royal, Peyton Hillis and the Ryans were the only bright lights in a otherwise bad team.  The guy made plays when he had to, and unfortunately, he failed 18 times.

I’m still not the biggest Cutler fan, but for now until Kyle Orton or Chris Simms steps up, I must say, we downgraded at that position and it’s time that Denver fans realize that No. 7 is not coming back and that there will never be another like him. 

Stop comparing everyone that comes through town to him, all you are doing is a disservice to yourself, because when that person doesn’t measure up, you’re gonna be disappointed and you are gonna want him outta town, even though they were doing a good job.

I hope all of the offseasonactivity works out for the Broncos, but now, we are back where we were fiveyears ago, trying to revive a defense and find a QB when the truth, as much as I hate to admit it, is that we had one and he was good.

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