What's Wrong in Denver

With the amount of media attention and pressure on athletes (both in their professional and personal lives), it's easy to forget how young most of them are. When a young man is leading an NFL team on the national stage (not to mention in a town that is famous for their rabid sports fans - especially football fans), he seems larger-than-life and often wiser than his years. But this recent hoopla concerning Jay Cutler and the Denver Broncos just goes to show that a kid in his mid-20's, no matter that he's a starting QB, is still a kid in his mid-20's.


It seems to me that Jay Cutler, although he probably has reason to be hurt over the Matt Cassel trade attempt, is allowing his young, hormonal brain and his aggressive, media-circus-hungry agent to let this situation spin completely out of control. This is one of the problems with throwing money, fame and a sort of power at young men who have never had to grow up past the guidance of coaches, agents and lawyers.

I'm not actually getting on a soapbox here. I don't want to change the game of football or who plays it. I'm just mildly amused at how worked up everyone is getting over what is really just a pretty obvious sign of immaturity.

T.O. to Buffalo

I understand why Buffalo picked up T.O. I do. They've struggled for a long time and they are reaching a point where their youngest fans (few though they may be) hardly remember the last time that the team made the playoffs. But in some of the pre-signing conjecture I heard, comments were made about Buffalo having "no receivers".

Lee Evans is a star-caliber receiver who is stuck in a small-market, underperforming team. Last year he signed a new contract, making him the 3rd highest paid receiver in the league (behind only Steve Smith and Larry Fitzgerald at the time - and I believe it the three still hold the top spots). He caught for over 1000 yards last year (and that's even with a drastic drop in productivity in the latter-half of the season, a fact I was painfully aware of with Evans as one of my top Fantasy receivers). Granted he only had 3 touchdowns, but there was a hell of a mess with the Buffalo QB situation last year and Lee can't be held accountable for that. A lot of the drop in his productivity was due to that, and I also think that opposing teams began to catch on and place primary importance on covering Evans - because they don't actually have anyone else substantial.

Based on T.O.'s first years with other teams (everyone and their brother has posted the stats, so I'm not going to bother), Buffalo probably made a good call. Though I kinda wish they hadn't picked him up so quickly. It would have been very interesting to see how long he would have stayed on the market otherwise, and how little he would have ended up working for.