Brandon Marshall is not worth it

Brandon Marshall is a very good wide receiver. He's the best that the Broncos have and maybe one of the top five or six in the NFL. With Jay Cutler gone, the Broncos are going to need their receivers to be highly competent and to adjust to Kyle Orton and/or Chris Simms for the team to have any chance (slight though it may be) of contending this year.

With all that said...hey Broncos: Get rid of Brandon Marshall. He's an immature, selfish, whining, violent jerk. Over the last three years, he has:

Aggravated the incident that led to Darrent Williams dying;
Beaten, choked, and shaken female companions more than once;
Allegedly slashed one woman with a knife;
Busted for a post-game DUI;
Been a team distraction from said involvement in above incidents;
BEATEN, CHOKED, AND SHAKEN WOMEN MORE THAN ONCE;

And now HE WANTS A RAISE?!?!?!?

We have friends who have stopped watching NBA basketball. When pressed for a reason, one of their gripes is "the league is full of thugs." Now, we love the NFL, but really? How many Brandon Marshalls are there in the NBA? Did Dwayne Wade get caught killing pit bulls recently? Did Steve Nash get busted for coke in a parking lot last year? Did Shaq shoot himself in a club last season? Did Kobe Bryant--well, okay, but he was acquitted, it was over five years ago, and the last thing anyone can call Kobe is "thuggish." He may be a dick, but not a thug.

The NFL has more thugs than the NBA--even going by percentage--and

Brandon Marshall is a THUG.

This is not someone the Broncos and their fans should want to be associated with. If Broncos fans stop blinding themselves (we aren't going to win it all this year, sorry) and really, REALLY look hard at everything Brandon Marshall has done over his career right up until Spring of 2009, we as a fanbase should be just as tired of B-Marsh as Falcons fans were of Mr. Vick--and the organization should feel the same way. Yet the Broncos are probably reconsidering his contract because of the fear of fan backlash. After all, they can't afford to lose an on-field presence that has contributed to such a "dominant" .500 team that's missed the playoffs three straight Jake "the Snake" Plummer-less years going on four. Hey, Brandon IS a really good ball-catching-guy.

Mr. Bowlen, you showed guts when you finally said "enough" and fired Shanahan. You showed guts backing Josh McDaniel even when his judgment seemed questionable regarding Jay Cutler. Show some guts now. Don't cave in to B-Marsh. If he wants to earn the money he agreed to be paid according to the contract he signed, let him play out the season. If he behaves and has a good year, franchise his ass and tell him if he so much as gets a parking ticket he can eat bench until his contract is up. But don't give in and reward Brandon Marshall for being cancerous. Cut him or keep him, but don't cave to him.

We want the Broncos to succeed, but not with an asshole like Marshall giving us second thoughts about the team's character. We'd actually like it if the team we liked was actually worth liking. C'mon last year Jay Cutler--JAY CUTLER--called B-Marsh immature. We all know Pumpkin Pie isn't exactly a paragon of maturity and restraint, so for him to call Brandon a whiny girly man should have set off a lot more alarms in Denver.

Also, if this was one of the New York teams or New England or DC, the media would be treating B-Marsh like a superstar criminal and the Broncos would be made to look like total douchebags for putting up with him. Thank goodness ESPN doesn't give a crap about anything that happens west of Philly except Lebron James and Manny Ramirez.

Anyway, that's our story and we're sticking to it.

CUT THE THUG!!!

How Manny Ramirez relates to football

Do you like HGH, Shawne?

So former Red Sox, former Indians, and current Dodgers star Manny Ramirez just got popped for using a banned substance by Major League Baseball.  He'll be out 50 games and lose $8 million dollars for (if you believe the story) a doctor-prescribed sex enhancer hormone (that can possibly double as a post-roid chaser.)  Once again steroids in baseball are on the top of the sports page, and once again sportswriters are foaming at the mouth about "oh no, ban them all, the sport is a disgrace, clean up baseball, what a blow to the sport."

Whatever.  Baseball has no more of a steroids presence than football.  What I (Pale Horseman...LPP himself largely hates baseball) don't understand is that how a sport that has been for better or worse officially passed by football as the national pastime is still treated as the holiest of holies by the same people who will admit to have abandoned it LONG before the strike of 1994 and the steroids fallout.  All we hear about in baseball is "Bonds' records should/shouldn't count," or "McGwire should/shouldn't be in the Hall of Fame," or "How can we trust anyone?"  Yet in football, you hear about a guy getting suspended for performance drugs, all you hear is "how will this affect the team?"  Not ONE  F***ING  WORD about "what a shame," "call in Congress," "think of the children."  Just "what an idiot, how will this affect the team?" 

Football is obviously America's sport of choice these days, yet it's baseball that evokes sentimentality.  What records or achievements can most people name quickly for baseball?  DiMaggio, 56-game hitting streak.  Bonds' 73 homers to top McGwire's 70 homers to top Maris' 61 homers to top Ruth's 60 homers.  755.  714.  59 consecutive scoreless innings.  Guys with 500 homers.  Guys with 3000 hits.  Ripken's Ironman streak.  

How many records or numbers like that can most people name from football that didn't happen in the past 2-3 years?  The Dolphins' perfect season.  Brett Favre's games-started streak.  18-1 (which because of the Dolphins and Giants DOESN'T MATTER, HAHAHAHA)  That's pretty much it, and ONLY because we hear about them from the TV announcers every time a team gets to 5-0 and every time Brett Favre ever stepped on a damn football field.  Maybe some bits and pieces about Emmitt Smith or Jerry Rice, but no one really remembers the numbers without Wikipedia.

What I'm trying to say is this:  there's a double standard here that I don't understand.  It's apparent that America has made its choice and picks football over baseball--the numbers back that statement up and then some.  So how come it's baseball that has a "steroid problem" when football players up and down the roster are anywhere from 40 to 80 pounds more massive on average than they used to be, get caught almost if not just as regularly, and have horrible health problems after retirement?  Do football fans really just not care?  Is it because football, like so many other things, feeds America's short attention span and love for sex and violence, and needs to be nothing else?  If baseball is so "boring" why do so many writers go insane when Rafael Palmeiro is considered for the Hall of Fame but Rodney Harrison gets banned and reinstated within one season and writers say "watch out, the Pats have their strength back."

Who knows?  Screw it.

LET PLUMMER PLAY!!!

Not surprising, but still...

Guess what? Oh, you already knew. Brett Favre is going to sit down and have a friendly little talk with the Vikings about taking off his real comfortable jeans and suiting up in purple.

Sweet Jesus on a moped. Enough is too much, Brett. We can't get 34-year-old Jake Plummer back, but Brett Favre won't go gently into that good night? This is what we get for eating California cheese instead of Wisconsin cheese. What's that? Brett's from Minnesota? Well, crap, what comes from Minnesota? Prince? We like Prince, Brett.

Anyway, if nothing else, this means Jake has at least a five-year return window. True, he probably won't come back, but at least we have something to bitch about for the next five years.

Jake takes his first step on the coaching ladder

Explained below.

According to the news wires, Jake Plummer is going to be the new quarterbacks coach at Sandpoint High in Idaho. Congratulations to Jake and also to Sandpoint High, naturally. Also, congrats to Jake for helping raise over $10,000 for the DayBreak Center (see our last posting.)

So why is Justin flipping the bird? Why, he's flipping it at Examiner.com's Broncos yapper Greg Henry (okay, Justin's not really, but we are), who has reacted to this Plummer news with lazy witticisms. Quoth:

"Views: We're guessing Idaho doesn't get much news about Plummer's antics. His sideline flipping the bird at Broncos fans, berating a local columnist with a 9 p.m. phone call at her home, leaving his fiance at the altar in Hawaii, his general disdain for personal hygiene ...

We're guessing the folks in Idaho like the lumberjack look -- scruffy beard, plaid shirt, stocking cap and uncombed hair. We also think it's a good deal for Plummer; a part-time coaching job so he can keep up his illustrious racquetball career.

All we can say is good luck to those high school kids in Idaho. Let's hope Plummer is a better role model and teacher in Sandpoint than he ever was in Denver."

Let's hope you get a paper cut, Greg. Let's see...flipping the bird? Five years ago. The phone call? Truthfully, we don't remember that. We're sure it was a while back. Leaving his fiance? It sounds harsh, and maybe his timing was a little off, but better to call off a wedding BEFORE you get married than fake your way through it and try to live with someone you don't want to live with. Unless you're one of those hardline religious types who would rather see two people torture each other in matrimony. His lack of personal hygiene? I'm sorry, I don't recall any news of Jake skipping showers when he had his glorious beard. I don't see anyone berating Jesus or Moses for their lack of hygiene. And those Hasidic Jews must be REALLY dirty, right?

And we'd like to say going after his "illustrious racquetball career" is a pretty low blow, but we guess "racquetball player" must be far, far below the title of "Denver Broncos Examiner" on the sign-up sheet on Career Day. It's too bad Jake isn't wealthy or anything from that NFL career and can't pick something to do he actually likes.

Jake will be a better role model for Sandpoint than he was in Denver because Jake like any sane person realizes that in the NFL, he wasn't a ROLE MODEL, he was a SPORTS IDOL--just like every other player. People wanting athletes to be role models are insane. If athletes volunteer to be all-around neato people, sure, let them be role models--in their spare time. Otherwise, it's a parent's job to point out that most people who play childrens' games for a living are NOT to be emulated. Famous athletes are idolized for their play, their pay, and their fame. How can a kid truly model himself after someone based purely on news blurbs and on-field accomplishments? There's no personal connection, nor should there be because athletes like anyone else have personal private lives that shouldn't really be anyone's concern beyond what they want the public to know. As a SPORTS IDOL, maybe Jake fell short because he understood the hypocrisy and flat-out bullshit involved in spinning idolatry as being a "role model" and refused to buy into it.

But as a high school coach, Jake the Snake is now specifically a ROLE MODEL. This is a position he has fully accepted. Jake Plummer turns 35 this year, is far removed from the smoke and mirrors of the NFL and is by all accounts a family man who has settled disturbingly well into a non-NFL existence. I think he'll manage to avoid flipping off his players or convincing a kid to grow a beard--like that would matter anyway.

Either people grow up or they don't. Jake's grown up. If all "journalists" want to do is take potshots at positive acts--like a Pro Bowl QB offering his experience to kids who would otherwise be learning from math teachers and guys who never played past high school--then maybe we should all pray that Pacman Jones, Matt Jones, Michael Vick and Plaxico Buress end up in Broncos blue-and-orange so that we can read some nice complimentary articles for a change.

Not that we regularly read the Examiner or recommend doing so. It's just what came up when we Googled "Jake Plummer News." Sadly, this makes them a valued source.

Anyway, good luck to Sandpoint High as they...

LET PLUMMER COACH!!!

P.S. According to what we've heard, Pumpkin Pie (Jay Cutler for the uninformed) has reached out to Plaxico Buress and is trying to get the Bears interested in signing the ex-Giant who doesn't know how to use the safety on a gun. Good for you. Pumpkin Pie. We know you get along really well with immature dimwit receivers.

The Snake Also Gives

Gotta love that shirt.

Jake update!

Is Jake Plummer un-retiring and returning to make the NFL a fun place again?

Well...no. However, Jake will be doing something a little more constructive in Sandpoint, Idaho on April 11th. Jake and former Packers All-Pro Jerry Kramer will be raising money at the Sandpoint Senior Center to benefit the DayBreak Center for elderly Alzheimer's Patients and also to raise money for local high school athletics. Jake and Jerry have donated signed items for auction among other things, and there's dinner thrown in to boot. Only $25 to get in with the money going to two worthy causes. And you'll get to meet Jake! If we were in Idaho, we would totally go meet Jake and probably get thrown out of the event for being annoying. One of us had a chance to go ambush him at a handball tournament in California a while back but fate was not on our side that weekend.

Anyway, it's nice to see Jake giving back to the community, even if it's not our community. If we ran into him, we would probably ask an inappropriate and silly question about the whole Cutler fiasco...but even if he got annoyed, we'd probably get an honest answer. Idaho, however, is far.

In other Plummer tidbits, Greg Henry of the Denver Broncos examiner had the audacity (sort of) to loosely compare Jake Plummer with Kyle Orton. Hmm, why would that be? Oh, yeah the beard thing. Thankfully Mr. Henry (no relation to Travis) did not expand on this comparison and thereby sully Jake's reputation. Furthermore, the fact that the beard exists means little. True, it's cool that Orton has sported the beard--and we wish him to do so in 2009 and beyond--however comparing Orton's "too lazy to shave" beard to Jake's glorious hairy visage is literally like comparing...

this guy

to

this guy

...and to be frank, any logical person will tell you that comparing Orton to Plummer in pretty much any category gives you the same result.

Anyway, raise that money, Jake!

LET PLUMMER GIVE!!!

Jay Cutler is a Bear. Seriously.

Sure it was possible. We still didn't think it would be the freakin' Bears.

Once again, we come to the end of a very short era in Denver Broncos quarterback history. Jay Cutler, our oft-maligned, sometimes beloved Pumpkin Pie, is gone baby gone.

Jay Cutler was traded to the Bears this afternoon along with a fifth-round pick for occasional Bears starter Kyle Orton (he of the magnificent neckbeard) a third round pick in 2008, and the Bears' two first rounders in 2009 and 2010.

PUMPKIN PIE IS GONE.

We here at LPP haven't let this one settle yet, but let's break it down:

-We've been saying lately that we'd follow Pumpkin Pie wherever he may go and support his new team fully. At that time, we didn't really think that destination would be Chicago. While Jay Cutler is instantly our all-time favorite Chicago Bears player (replacing, um...Jim McMahon? Walter Payton? Ditka? Brian Griese?) We've never given more than a passing fart about Chicago and don't look to start now. Check back in a month or two.

-As much as we've felt that the Broncos and Josh McDaniels looked like idiots for mishandling Cutler's ego, this deal makes mild sense because while Orton isn't a great QB, B-Marsh, Eddie Royal, and Tony Scheffler are about to at least make him look like a decent QB and those draft picks...well, the Bears look like a middle-of-the-road team with or without Jay, so picking around #15 two years in a row is a heck of a deal. Can't wait for one of those picks to be used to select the next QB who gets to follow Jay, Jake Plummer, and Brian Griese as the star of Denver's ongoing reality series "I'M NOT JOHN ELWAY...GET ME OUT OF HERE!!!"

-Congratulations on getting Orton by the way, Plummer haters and Cutler turncoats. In 6 years, Denver has gone from Brian Griese to a guy who occasionally couldn't beat out Brian Griese. Good luck with that, since all you Elway worshippers were so kind to Griese while you were chanting "WE WANT PLUMMER" back in 2002.

-How could we have been so right? Our words, 2007: "Can’t you just picture Pumpkin Pie getting run out of town Griese- or Plummer-style in 3 years and then catching on to another team that will probably know how to use him?" The Bears may not be that team, but Cutler gets to hand-pick his next city, doesn't he?

The city of Denver still expects Elway every time the ball is snapped. Many will cry: "We have the right to expect greatness! Don't we get to hope that someone will live up to Elway's standard?" Of course you do. But the kind of Broncos fan we DON'T like is the one who arbitraily decides that "THIS KID" (Griese '99, Jake '02, Jay '06) is going to be the savior, at which time "THAT GUY" (Bubby Brister '99, Griese '02, Jake '06 and now Jay '09) is considered tainted goods that need to be disposed of before they can taint the new Elway 2.0.

Well you get what you ask for, Denver fans. Suddenly Jay Cutler wasn't the sweet little Pumpkin Pie you expected, who kept his mouth shut, kissed babies, thanked Jesus, and aw-shucksed his way into the heart of the city like a certain #7 did. Did Elway win more games? Sure. He also had a coach who understood what a f***ing defense was without needing flash cards and a copy of "NFL Defense for Dummies, and when he didn't he at least had the best teammates that illegal salary cap violations could buy.

Jay Cutler is no John Elway. Fine. That's fair. But like Jake and Griese before him, he wasn't given a fair chance to prove that Denver didn't NEED a John Elway to succeed in the 21st century. With Shanahan's archaic offenses and non-existent defenses out of the picture, it was time for Jay Cutler to get an offense and defense built from the ground up by a new coach with new ideas.

Well, forget that.

Now Jay's in Chicago and the Broncos get a wonderful choice at QB...do they play Kyle Orton, who often wasn't good enough to beat out Brian Griese--the first guy they ran out of town? Or do they play Chris Simms, who inspired so little confidence in Tampa Bay that the Fake Raiders tried to acquire Jake Plummer--the second guy they ran out of town? Oooooh, it's so hard to choose!

It's been a rough ride for Broncos fans these past few years, but we're going to go ahead and say that a lot of this ill will falls squarely on the shoulders of the fans, especially in the internet age where the world will damn well know how every single person with an internet connection feels about EVERYTHING. You wanted Griese? You got him. You wanted Jake? You got him. You wanted Cutler? You got him. Well what the hell did you want this time Denver? Whatever it is, you've got it.

What this all boils down to is that the Broncos should have...

LET PLUMMER PLAY!!!

This is not an April Fools Joke...

We here at LPP have taken our official stand: F U!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! JOSH MCDANIELS....

We don't think this comic from Espn.com is very funny, but it kinda is in a way...And if you didn't hear us, we say F U!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! JOSH MCDANIELS, you're a real ass!