Tuesday, March 17, 2009

Rocky Mountain buh-bye...

When we rule the world, it will be mandated that every trade rumour story must have the coda "or not" tacked on to the end.

As in, "Jets might want Cutler — or not." Anything you read about the ex-Denver Broncos QB — or not — is is a function of the calendar. There isn't a ton of NFL news in mid-March. This is a league which has become as annoying as baseball (or hockey in Canada, thank you, TSN) for trying to make the season last 12 months. In a half-hour of research, give or take 28 minutes, you can find out that Jay Cutler's agent, Bus Cook, was in Buffalo yesterday, that Newsday's pot-stirrer par excellence Wallace Matthews says the J-E-T-S Jets Jets Jets must get Cutler, since having another Cook-represented QB, Brett Favre, worked so well last season, until the games really started to matter. Point being, you should be prepared to let a lot of Cutler talk go in one ear and out the other, unless the journos who cover your favourite team are saying something such as, "we're guessing there will be another list very soon that will have Minnesota front and center. Just give it some time."

Really, you mean that? Those who would know say that ship already sailed unless the Vikes are willing to deal Denver a carload of draft choices. Never mind that the Vikings might have those earmarked for players who block, tackle, cover and rush the passer and make up the 53 finely meshed gears that make up a football team. That's all well and good, but it has nothing to do with playing quarterback, which as is our understanding, is about being in TV commercials or being romantically linked to a country-music cutie of the moment. (That might be a bit major media-inculcated.)

It's a little tough to buy any Cutler-to-Buffalo talk. The NFL might be so desperate to plug the Bills In Toronto series that they'll have Peyton Manning and the Indianapolis Colts play there next season, but Cutler and Manning? Whoa.

Point being, there's a lot of treacle to cut through, and I wholeheartedly apologize for not having the willpower to resist commenting or adding anything original to the discussion. It would be awesome if Jay Cutler somehow ended up on the Vikings. As a fan, it's good to sort of have a framework for approaching this, which is a faux-erudite way of saying you should at least be consistent in which clichés you choose to monger. Some people would say that they wouldn't want Jay Cutler on their favourite NFL team, extrapolating that he would be a bad influence in the locker room, based on how it's gone sour in Denver. None of that is actually important. A NFL career is short, you gotta get what you can while you can, so you can't blame Cutler's agent for taking decisive action rather than have his client stuck with an organization that's leaking oil three lanes wide and has hired a newbie coach, Josh McDaniels, to turn around the loveboat.

So, yeah, get Cutler to Minnesota, pronto. He's been all about winning since he committed to play college football at Vanderbilt. By the way, did you hear this one: Cutler could go to the Dallas Cowboys in return for Tony Romo — or not.

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