Post by grizzly on Dec 30, 2008 13:27:11 GMT -5
www.milehighsports.com/daily_december_30.php
SNAKE BIT
The shadow of Jake Plummer looms larger than expected
By Tyler Maun
The Honda Element. The middle finger. The threatening voicemails to a gossip columnist who may or may not have overstepped her bounds. Jake Plummer didn’t make a whole lot of friends once things started going sour in Denver and even before. Yet two years and change into the Post-Plummer Era, the glory days that the majority of Broncos loyalists expected under Jake the Snake’s replacement have yet to arrive.
Over his three-plus years as the Denver Broncos’ starter, Plummer threw for 71 touchdowns and 47 interceptions. Averaging that out, the Snake accounted for 1.3 TDs and .83 INTs per start. Cutler has tossed 54 TDs and 37 INTs in 37 games as Denver’s main guy behind center, an average of 1.46 TDs and 1 INT per game. You’d expect more scoring from the rocket-armed Cutler, but could it be true that the Anointed One could actually be more turnover prone than the guy who was run out of town because of his notoriously erratic play? Project those numbers over a sixteen-game season and that’s nearly three more INTs from Cutler than from Plummer.
Yet the one stat—the only stat¬¬—that matters is record. Jake Plummer played on better teams, yes, or at least teams that kind of pretended to play defense. Yet the one stat that really should have defined Jake Plummer’s now-marginalized career in Denver was his win-loss record. You could make arguments about Plummer’s play or his non-stereotypical mentality, but you can’t deny, try as you might, that Jake Plummer was a winner in Denver. The Snake finished his time in orange and blue at 39-15. That’s a winning percentage of close to .725. No team with a winning percentage over .688 missed the playoffs this year, and one at .500 got in as well. Never mind that.
Jay Cutler’s record is that of an average quarterback. That’s not an insult, that’s a fact. Under his leadership, the Broncos are 17-20. .459. Below average. They experienced the biggest collapse maybe of any team in NFL history, becoming the first club since NFL divisional play began in 1967 to blow a three game division lead with three games to play. Pitiful. Before the 2008 Broncos’ body was even cool on the season autopsy table, Cutler summed up the campaign by getting out of Dodge (or Dove Valley) as quickly as possible, saying Monday as his teammates packed for the offseason, “Time to move on. I’m definitely going to get out of here. I have a flight at three.” Bravo. That’s leadership in a category all its own.
All we heard from Broncos brass leading into this season, especially head coach Mike Shanahan himself, was that quarterbacks blossom in their third year under Shanahan’s system. John Elway’s third year under Shanahan led to a Super Bowl title. Plummer’s resulted in an AFC Championship Game appearance. Cutler’s? A sub-.500 career record and a down-the-stretch meltdown befitting the New York Mets of late. Granted, no one could have anticipated the injuries that decimated this Broncos roster, and no one could have conceived of a defense that was unfathomably bad at times (despite the fact that every new defensive coordinator for the last decade has seemingly had the right stuff to turn things around). Yet quarterback play determines a lot, as it did with Cutler’s crucial pair of INTs in San Diego—one in the end zone and one that led to the Chargers turning an 11-point game into a 25-point one in a matter of seconds. And in Denver, it hasn’t determined much good recently.
This argument is a rhetorical one. Nobody is suggesting trying to bring Jake Plummer back or force Jay Cutler out of town. This Broncos team will not be fixed by replacing Jay Cutler, and the problems for this season certainly do not fall solely on his shoulders. But the issue remains that the Denver fan base forced a winner out of town because he was different or because he refused to utter clichés like “taking it one game at a time” or “that’s the National Football League” ad nauseum or because he had long hair and a beard and refused to take his Pat Tillman decal off his helmet. The boos at Mile High muscled Plummer out the door in favor of the fresh-faced kid whose rocket right arm and questionable hairstyle reminded Denver fans of another moptop from the most prestigious private university in his football conference.
Plummer was an easy scapegoat. Just like Jim Bates. And Larry Coyer. And Ray Rhodes. And Ashley Lelie. Be careful what you wish for. It just might result in mediocrity.
Sounds about right.
SNAKE BIT
The shadow of Jake Plummer looms larger than expected
By Tyler Maun
The Honda Element. The middle finger. The threatening voicemails to a gossip columnist who may or may not have overstepped her bounds. Jake Plummer didn’t make a whole lot of friends once things started going sour in Denver and even before. Yet two years and change into the Post-Plummer Era, the glory days that the majority of Broncos loyalists expected under Jake the Snake’s replacement have yet to arrive.
Over his three-plus years as the Denver Broncos’ starter, Plummer threw for 71 touchdowns and 47 interceptions. Averaging that out, the Snake accounted for 1.3 TDs and .83 INTs per start. Cutler has tossed 54 TDs and 37 INTs in 37 games as Denver’s main guy behind center, an average of 1.46 TDs and 1 INT per game. You’d expect more scoring from the rocket-armed Cutler, but could it be true that the Anointed One could actually be more turnover prone than the guy who was run out of town because of his notoriously erratic play? Project those numbers over a sixteen-game season and that’s nearly three more INTs from Cutler than from Plummer.
Yet the one stat—the only stat¬¬—that matters is record. Jake Plummer played on better teams, yes, or at least teams that kind of pretended to play defense. Yet the one stat that really should have defined Jake Plummer’s now-marginalized career in Denver was his win-loss record. You could make arguments about Plummer’s play or his non-stereotypical mentality, but you can’t deny, try as you might, that Jake Plummer was a winner in Denver. The Snake finished his time in orange and blue at 39-15. That’s a winning percentage of close to .725. No team with a winning percentage over .688 missed the playoffs this year, and one at .500 got in as well. Never mind that.
Jay Cutler’s record is that of an average quarterback. That’s not an insult, that’s a fact. Under his leadership, the Broncos are 17-20. .459. Below average. They experienced the biggest collapse maybe of any team in NFL history, becoming the first club since NFL divisional play began in 1967 to blow a three game division lead with three games to play. Pitiful. Before the 2008 Broncos’ body was even cool on the season autopsy table, Cutler summed up the campaign by getting out of Dodge (or Dove Valley) as quickly as possible, saying Monday as his teammates packed for the offseason, “Time to move on. I’m definitely going to get out of here. I have a flight at three.” Bravo. That’s leadership in a category all its own.
All we heard from Broncos brass leading into this season, especially head coach Mike Shanahan himself, was that quarterbacks blossom in their third year under Shanahan’s system. John Elway’s third year under Shanahan led to a Super Bowl title. Plummer’s resulted in an AFC Championship Game appearance. Cutler’s? A sub-.500 career record and a down-the-stretch meltdown befitting the New York Mets of late. Granted, no one could have anticipated the injuries that decimated this Broncos roster, and no one could have conceived of a defense that was unfathomably bad at times (despite the fact that every new defensive coordinator for the last decade has seemingly had the right stuff to turn things around). Yet quarterback play determines a lot, as it did with Cutler’s crucial pair of INTs in San Diego—one in the end zone and one that led to the Chargers turning an 11-point game into a 25-point one in a matter of seconds. And in Denver, it hasn’t determined much good recently.
This argument is a rhetorical one. Nobody is suggesting trying to bring Jake Plummer back or force Jay Cutler out of town. This Broncos team will not be fixed by replacing Jay Cutler, and the problems for this season certainly do not fall solely on his shoulders. But the issue remains that the Denver fan base forced a winner out of town because he was different or because he refused to utter clichés like “taking it one game at a time” or “that’s the National Football League” ad nauseum or because he had long hair and a beard and refused to take his Pat Tillman decal off his helmet. The boos at Mile High muscled Plummer out the door in favor of the fresh-faced kid whose rocket right arm and questionable hairstyle reminded Denver fans of another moptop from the most prestigious private university in his football conference.
Plummer was an easy scapegoat. Just like Jim Bates. And Larry Coyer. And Ray Rhodes. And Ashley Lelie. Be careful what you wish for. It just might result in mediocrity.
Sounds about right.
