Image never counts as much as touchdowns in the NFL, but as fresh rookie quarterback Jay Cutler stood amid the sad mess that the Denver locker room has become, it was easy to see why he is the future of the Broncos and beleaguered veteran Jake Plummer is not.
“Yeah,” Cutler said, when asked after a disheartening 19-10 loss to Kansas City if he was ready to replace Plummer in the starting lineup. “I think I could go out there and play and be efficient with this offense.”
Dressed for success and unmarked by failure, Cutler wore a snappy pinstripe suit, looking like a 23-year-old who could secure a loan from a banker and be trusted by a football coach not to throw away his good fortune.
Standing on the same spot minutes later, wearing a hang-dog expression and a cheesy cowboy shirt decorated with eagles, Plummer appeared on the verge of tears and cursed as he contemplated being benched by the Broncos.
“You guys will probably know before me,” said Plummer, telling a row of television cameras to expect the Denver media to be alerted about a change at quarterback before he is told.
Tough luck, cowboy.
Hopelessly stuck between wasted opportunity and regret, there’s no saving Plummer now.
What coach Mike Shanahan needs to worry about is losing his football team.
While Shanahan has done a masterful job of coaxing seven victories from a Denver squad battered and flawed from running back to the defensive line, could this inevitable transition from Plummer to Cutler possibly have been bungled worse?
The slow, painful sacking of Plummer might well have cost the Broncos a crucial victory in Kansas City, where the veteran quarterback played like a condemned man with nothing to gain. This was a game, please remember, that Denver trailed by less than a touchdown with fewer than 10 minutes remaining in the fourth quarter. This was a loss that reduced the team’s chances of winning the AFC West to a prayer. This defeat could ultimately mean Shanahan misses the playoffs for the first time since the 2002 NFL season, which – surprise, surprise – was the last time Shanahan sacked a quarterback for non-performance.
“There’s a sense of urgency, because we’ve got to run the table,” said Broncos receiver Javon Walker, who speaks his mind with less fear-filled filtering than almost anyone on the team.
Sure, I get why Plummer needs to be thrown under the Denver bus, in spite of his 40 regular-season victories during his stint in town. Plummer never felt right on this team to me. The rogue cowboy always seemed out of his Honda Element with an oh-so-buttoned-down coach.
The reason Shanahan lost trust in Plummer had nothing to do with unruly hair, those slacker clothes or a chippy fender-bender, but the unkempt way this quarterback played the game, firing passes into double coverage, then asking questions later.
Whenever the Broncos endure a disappointing season, there’s always some fool to take the fall at Dove Valley, deflecting blame from the savvy coach in charge. Plummer wilts on the same hot seat once reserved for defensive coordinator Greg Robinson or Michael Dean Perry, the D-lineman who hustled off the field too slowly by Shanahan’s clock. The accusations of failure to do his homework that cause Plummer to bristle now sound suspiciously like the whispers that Bubby Brister was dumber than a pet rock.
From the moment Cutler was drafted in April, I have been telling everyone this kid from Vanderbilt had the talent and the maturity to play much sooner than anyone dared to think, and the chances of Cutler taking meaningful snaps as a rookie were much better than 50-50. Folks who laughed at me six months ago are now shouting: Put in Cutler.
But, after the Broncos threw away a game in Kansas City by undermining what little authority Plummer had left in him, it’s too late in a season gone wrong for Cutler to walk on water in San Diego, and the rookie’s arms are still too short to box with Peyton Manning in the playoffs.
Maybe that’s why Broncos tight end Nate Jackson, a friend to Plummer, seethed with anger as the media presumed his buddy was a dead quarterback walking in the visitors’ locker room.
“When people are bashing the man and calling for his replacement, of course it’s going to affect him,” Jackson said. “He’s a human being.”
Which makes you wonder: Why would anyone with the Broncos leak the information that Plummer would lose his starting job even if the Broncos beat the Chiefs to NFL.com, the league’s official website, long enough before kickoff for the veteran quarterback to catch word of his impending demise?
If the Xinhua News Agency, run by the state of China, declared a government leader was about to be unceremoniously dumped, what would be the point of the poor sap showing up for work the next day?
The sad story on the NFL’s website read as if the Broncos had delivered a crushing, blindside blow to Plummer before he took the field. It did the quarterback, and more importantly, his team a great disservice.
Any questions?
I’m afraid Al Wilson, Rod Smith and veteran Broncos busting their tails to make the playoffs might not like the answer any better than the rest of us.
Staff writer Mark Kiszla can be reached at 303-954-1053 or mkiszla@denverpost.com.
