A little late, yes, but it’s Weekend Fourteener time:
1. And now, a word from a spoiled brat: “At the end of the meeting, he wasn’t like, ‘Jay, I want you as our quarterback, you’re our guy.’ It felt like the opposite. He basically said that I needed to tell him if we can’t work this out, to let him know. I thought he was antagonizing me and that was disappointing because I was ready to move on, committed as a Bronco. Really, I figured we’d hash things out, shake hands, laugh a little and move forward.” In other words, so long, Jay Cutler, and don’t let the door hit you on the way out lest you start crying.
2. So where do the Broncos go from here? Tampa Bay and Detroit seem to be Jay’s most likely destinations, but I don’t think Detroit will part with the top overall pick for Cutler. If they did, you could start printing Matthew Stafford jerseys, but I don’t think that’s likely. Mark Sanchez is a possibility with a later first-round choice, perhaps even at 12 where the Broncos currently pick. But if Denver can’t land either of those, they will open the 2009 season with Chris Simms under center… and if you thought the last son of a Super Bowl winning QB that ran the Broncos offense was a let-down, you ain’t seen nothing yet.
3. How will Bronco fans react? Yeah, Cutler was ‘the future’ and ‘the franchise’ and made a Pro Bowl, but his teams didn’t win and weren’t any closer to winning in 2009. And anybody with half a brain can see that Cutler has as much, if not more, to do with his ouster than anything Josh McDaniels and Brian Xanders have done. Cutler moped his way out of Denver. He deserves nothing less than vilification for it.
4. That’s not to say McDaniels and Xanders shouldn’t take some heat from Broncos fans. They were unable to pacify Cutler, even though such an undertaking would have been extremely difficult. And their public stance was confusing at best, misleading at worst.
5. Hey, if nothing else, Cutler will always be the greatest diabetic quarterback who looked like an emo kid in Denver Bronco history, and nobody can ever take that away from him.
6. YouTube video of the week: Thanks for the memories, Jay.
7. In non-crybaby news… seems unthinkable to say this, but who knew that the most important player on the Denver Nuggets was Kenyon Martin? The Nuggets have lost front-court depth, defensive intensity, and a noticeable amount of swagger with Martin on the shelf with back problems. These don’t seem to be the type of problems that will just disappear with time, either, so Denver has to find a way to cope with his loss better than they have of late. The Nugs jumped back into the Northwest Division lead on Sunday night with losses by Utah and Portland.
8. Jorge De la Rosa’s three scoreless innings for the Rockies today in Tucson were a welcome sight after he’d been bombed in consecutive Cactus League starts and subsequently called out on the carpet by manager Clint Hurdle and pitching coach Bob Apodaca, who said Jorge’s problems were all mental. Most of the feeling of relative calm the Rockies have about the front four in the rotation centers around De la Rosa returning to the form he showed the last two months of 2008, so if his rocky spring thus far has been a mere bump in the road, you’ll hear a huge sigh of relief from 20th and Blake.
9. Another note on the Nuggets – it took George Karl 65 games to find out that Renaldo Balkman was good? Why in the blue hell wasn’t this guy getting at least 10-15 minutes a night from the get-go? Karl was able to get the most out of Eddie Najera, and Balkman, for all intents and purposes, IS Najera – high energy and effort, great on the offensive glass, and able to get to the bucket. After Balkman threw up a 22 and 11 at the Clippers on Saturday night, I would love to say he’s bought himself rotation minutes the rest of the season, but knowing Karl like I do, that’s not a certainty.
10. Denver sports blog you need to be reading of the week: Denver Stiffs, my favorite Nuggets blog out there with a terrific Doug Moe-inspired name.
11. Link of the week: Tracy Ringolsby and Jack Etkin, formerly the Rockies beat writers at the dearly departed Rocky Mountain News, are still covering the Rockies. Check out their site here.
12. Are the Avalanche still playing?
13. Remember Mark Macon?
14. And finally, hurry back, Chris Iannetta. You’re doing great things for Team USA at the World Baseball Classic, but Yorvit Torrealba is hitting the ball well for the Rox in Tucson, and I’d sure hate for Clint Hurdle to think it a good idea to give Yorvit an extra start a week in the early part of the season.
