Wednesday, October 10, 2007

With the BYE week, you have time to read this...

Q-BALLS

Jay Cutler, aka Pumpkin Pie, aka our favorite NFL Pastry, is a smart dude. He’s got a cannon arm and a tough physical frame; but let’s not beat around the bush...Vanderbilt is not some shady, cushy, “Rocks for Jocks 101” football machine that gives athletes a free ride just for showing up. Pumpkin Pie actually had to go to real classes and maintain a GPA to stay eligible. To the point: Vanderbilt is a great university. It is not a great football school.

Cutler lost a lot in college. Vanderbilt is to 1-A college football as the Atlanta Hawks are to basketball. Despite Cutler’s record-setting numbers at QB and some close, thrilling games for Vandy, the school was an abysmal 11-35 during his stay. In high school, Cutler’s team romped most of the time, going 26-1 in his last two years and outscoring their opponents by a ratio greater than 8-1, including one game that went 90-0. The guy even played Iron-man football at times, snagging several INTERCEPTIONS on the other side of scrimmage.

What we’re getting at: Pumpkin Pie is strong, he’s smart, and he’s certainly no sissy. However, he’s rarely been in the kind of situations where he can develop a sort of arrogant confidence in himself and in his ability to win no matter the odds. Pumpkin’s alma mater, Heritage High, is the football powerhouse of its region, beating up southwest Indiana’s PAC conference for ten years running. He didn’t have to face much adversity in high school as an efficient star component of an already-loaded team. At Vanderbilt, his team consisted of few stars and many true student-athletes. While Cutler kept them in many games, the Vanderbilt Commodores knew (especially in Cutler’s first 3 years) that losing was the most likely outcome; maybe anything could happen if they put up a fight and tried to keep it close but more likely not. That’s not how championship players are forged, no matter how you slice it.

We’ve obviously never played pro ball, but we’ve been on amateur teams in several sports and we can tell you what you may already know: if your team is bad, you FEEL it. Even if you’re the best QB, pitcher, or point guard in the city, if your team isn’t good enough to beat a better team you’re going to feel it like a flu coming on. It gets into your head no matter who you are, whether you’re Jay Cutler or Jay Nobody. In the movie “The Natural,” Roy Hobbs’ team hires a quack hypnotist to help get a team out of its losing streak. Although the approach is asinine and rejected by the players, the quack makes a point: “Losing is a disease.” That one part was absolutely true. Just because some players are stronger than others doesn’t mean they can’t be affected by losing attitudes.

Mike Shanahan’s nickname is “The Mastermind.” He’s quiet, analytical, and meticulous. While he is passionate in his way, he’s not going to be the type of coach to lose his cool to a referee or at a press conference; a rah-rah, give-me-everything-or-get-out motivational coach in the vein of a young Mike Ditka or Bill Parcells. Shanahan is in the Phil Jackson/Joe Torre mold; sure he’ll lose his temper occasionally, but he’ll try and squash it as quickly as possible if he feels it’s a distraction. This can be a good thing. But sometimes you need a coach who will properly complement his quarterback. You think Shanahan ever had to motivate Elway?

Case in point: Pumpkin Pie finds himself in a situation he’s never been in before. The Broncos are a team with almost all of the tools. What they’re missing is a fire, the kind of fire that the Elways and McNabbs of this world light under their teams as if to say “Let’s cut the bullshit--we’re going win this goddamn game no matter what.” Sometimes you can get away with a quarterback who can’t really do that as long as you have coaches who can...John Gruden with Tampa Bay; Brian Billick with the Ravens; Lovie Smith with the Bears; Bill Cowher in Pittsburgh. Here’s the problem: Cutler came from a high school where winning was almost an afterthought, and a college where any competitive game was an event. He was rarely in heated competition with titles and trophies on the line...his high school team blew by 95% of his opponents and his college teams never played for anything more than pride and bragging rights. Mike Shanahan is a strategist but rarely a motivator. Jay Cutler is a captain but not yet a leader. All the Champ Baileys and John Lynches and Rod Smiths in the world aren’t going to light a fire the way a coach or QB can, and this disjointed, disheartened Broncos team needs one or the other. Shanahan is set in his ways; he’ll never change. But Pumpkin Pie is expected to become the leader, a guy who will strap the team to his back, smack asses and shout encouragement from the sidelines, and basically act like the “general” any great quarterback from Otto Graham to Tom Brady is supposed to be.

Jay Cutler can be that guy, but he’s in the unenviable position of having gotten this far in a football career without yet being that guy and he’s playing for an extremely passive coach who is not going to prod him in that direction. But if you’re going to invest the kind of time and money the Broncos have in Cutler, that’s what he needs! He needs that hand-holding, that nurturing...in the art of coldly murdering his enemies with a satisfied smirk on his face. Cutler doesn’t need Mr. Miyagi, Cutler needs John Kreese. Jay doesn’t need to hear “Wax on, wax off,” he needs to hear “Sweep the leg!” For all of his arm strength and brains what Cutler needs more than anything else is a lesson in balls (figuratively speaking.) Are we saying Pumpkin Pie has no balls? Of course not, that’s stupid and insulting. But what Jay Cutler needs to have are the absolute biggest balls on the field, the “Quarterback’s Balls” or “Q-Balls,” for short. Pumpkin Pie’s Q-Balls should be so big that the refs have to make sure Denver doesn’t have too many men on the field. Peyton Manning’s got ‘em. Brett Favre’s got ‘em. Vince Young’s got ‘em. Hell, even old beat-up Daunte Culpepper swung a big pair of Q-Balls against Miami. Right now Pumpkin Pie has the relative Q-Balls of an Eli Manning or a Matt Hasselbeck. Some days they’ll get the job done; some days they won’t and it’s up to the rest of the team to work it out. For guys like say, Brett Favre, if they don’t have their Q-Balls in full swell (this is getting gross) their teams usually don’t have enough to pick up the slack and carry the win. That’s Pumpkin Pie’s situation in a nutshell, but he’s not showing the Q-Balls necessary to carry them when they need it.

What it comes down to is: Pumpkin Pie needs a true, effective mentor. The Broncos, knowing this, actually tried to keep Jake Plummer onboard to back Cutler, and one wonders if it wasn’t purely to develop Cutler’s Q-Balls (because it certainly wasn’t to play the guy.) Jake Plummer, whatever you thought of his talent or numbers, had Q-Balls that could choke Godzilla. Like it or not, sometimes the only person on the field who thought certain plays could be completed or certain games could be won was Jake Plummer. Even when the Snake failed, he went down swinging. With Jake’s departure, Cutler doesn’t have a cagey veteran on the sidelines and Shanahan isn’t going to step in and teach Cutler how to eat lightning and crap thunder. The Broncos have staked their future on a kid who’s heart, body, and mind aren’t the problems; it’s his lack of arrogance (who knew such players still existed?) and hesitance to stab the other team right through the chest. With all they’ve staked on Cutler’s future, Bowlen and Sundquist need to make a decision: keep the coach who’s been running in place for 10 years or back the kid? Cutler and Shanahan have no bad feelings, no bad blood...they’re just bad for each other because one needs to be what the other one needs to have. Either Cutler needs to fire it up for Shanahan, or Shanahan has to fire it up for Cutler.

Again, we’re not saying Cutler is gutless or “ball-less.” But what he is lacking above all else is the killer instinct of a guy with enormous “Q-Balls.” That’s something Shanahan doesn’t know how to teach. Shanahan’s had ten years to try it his way. It’s time to explore other options. Save Pumpkin Pie and Save the Broncos.

Oh, and buy a T-shirt from...


LET PLUMMER PLAY!!!

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

dude, you are quite insane, let it lie