Michael Silver's Take on the Mile High Drama.

I hope that when JC meets with McD there will be at least a common ground built upon respect.  They're both young and fairly successful in the NFL.  They both need to learn that HUMILITY will go a long way.  Anyway, here's the story:

Hello, and thanks for joining us here at Amateur Hour, coming to you live from the mountains of Colorado, where the NFL’s newest young guns are off to a bit of a rocky start.

To conclude that Josh McDaniels, the Denver Broncos’ 32-year-old rookie coach, and Brian Xanders, the team’s newly hired general manager, are in over their heads might seem a bit unfair. But I think I just heard their respective mothers calling them out of the deep end of the pool because it had been less than 30 minutes since their last meal.

In case you’ve been preoccupied by the Kurt Warner saga, T.J. Houshmandzadeh’s Pacific Northwest adventure or – gasp – news outside the realm of NFL offseason transactions, McDaniels and Xanders are the whiz kids who dangled their 25-year-old franchise quarterback, Jay Cutler, in trade talks over the weekend.

That decision in and of itself was shocking – who considers parting with a sturdy, young Pro Bowl passer with a huge arm and obvious potential for greatness? For a moment, however, let’s suspend disbelief and accept the notion that McDaniels, formerly Bill Belichick’s offensive coordinator in New England, and Xanders, a longtime Falcons salary-cap specialist, are shrewd visionaries who could have improved the Broncos’ short- and long-term prospects by getting rid of Cutler. Even then, could they have handled the situation more clumsily? By arriving late to the table in an effort to secure the services of former Patriots quarterback Matt Cassel – and failing to pull off a proposed three-way trade with New England which would’ve sent Cutler to Tampa Bay or Detroit, the news of which was leaked to NFL.com after the Pats ended up dealing Cassel to the Chiefs – McDaniels and Xanders exposed themselves as novices and will now suffer the consequences: • Cutler, who does not at all believe McDaniels’ public protestations that the Broncos were simply listening to offers for the quarterback initiated by others, mistrusts his new bosses and is angry about their apparent disrespect for his considerable abilities. • As Cutler has suggested, the news may also have a ripple effect in the locker room. If nothing else, other Broncos players will rightfully realize that if Cutler was deemed expendable, no one on the roster is sacred – and McDaniels is in an extreme-home-makeover state of mind. • If Xanders and McDaniels conclude that, even with Cassel gone, they still want to deal Cutler, their potential leverage with other teams has been reduced. In light of the news that they were talking to the Bucs and Lions about parting ways with the quarterback, any subsequent talks the Broncos initiate will be viewed as a sign that they are desperate to dump him. • On a slightly less crucial note, that constant noise filtering through the Broncos’ Dove Valley headquarters – former coach and personnel boss Mike Shanahan’s cackling laughter reverberating off the Rockies – is kind of distracting. None of this is necessarily calamitous. Some would argue that the drama between Cutler, who acknowledged that he was upset about Shanahan’s firing, and his new bosses is nothing that a few early-season victories won’t cure, or at least go a long way toward doing so. In fairness, I don’t know McDaniels or Xanders, and it’s possible both the young coach and the neophyte GM are the next Belichick and Scott Pioli, with championships and secret handshakes in their future. Right now, however, they seem like the teenagers who took their parents’ car for a spin and drove it into the neighbor’s pool. I’m wondering, is McDaniels really 32, or is he actually like Tom Hanks’ character in “Big,” a 13-year-old who magically morphs into an adult’s body? Certainly, Monday’s report by SI.com’s Peter King that Cutler had requested a trade in January – after the Broncos allowed Shanahan’s former offensive coordinator Jeremy Bates, with whom the quarterback was close, to leave for USC – adds another layer of intrigue to the situation. However, as McDaniels and Xanders should have realized, Cutler was undoubtedly reacting to a tumultuous stretch that began with Broncos owner Pat Bowlen’s surprise firing of Shanahan, his 14-year coach, following the 2008 season. That rocked Cutler’s world, and Bates’ departure was a major aftershock. Even if Cutler’s reaction seemed a bit extreme, McDaniels should’ve addressed the player’s insecurities and smoothed over the situation. That’s part of the deal with star quarterbacks. For all their natural bravado, they can be sensitive, insecure dudes, whether they’re relative youngsters like Ben Roethlisberger or grizzled veterans like Donovan McNabb or Brett Favre. Instead, McDaniels and Xanders – seemingly with Bowlen’s blessing, because I can’t imagine they’d have been bold enough to move Cutler without it – decided that a career backup who did a nice job filling in for the injured Tom Brady in ’08 would be a better man to build a team around than the 10th overall pick of the ’06 NFL draft. Then, instead of aggressively pursuing Cassel from the outset, McDaniels and Xanders (promoted to GM in February in another surprising move by Bowlen) misread the situation and got into the game after trade talks between Belichick and Pioli, the former Pats personnel chief who is now the Chiefs’ GM, were too far along. Much has been made about the fact that Belichick seemed to deal Cassel and veteran linebacker Mike Vrabel for less than presumed market value, receiving only Kansas City’s second-round pick (34th overall) in return. I can’t tell you with certainty how the situation played out, but logic suggests that Belichick had his reasons. First, Pioli was willing to make the trade without signing Cassel to a long-term contract, instead picking up the $14.65-million tab for 2009 that New England triggered when it placed the franchise tag upon the fifth-year quarterback. Seeking immediate salary-cap relief and worried that a team such as the Bucs or Lions would insist upon and have trouble negotiating a lucrative multiyear deal with Cassel before pulling the trigger on a trade, Belichick was motivated to act quickly. Secondly, while Belichick may or may not have overtly extended a friends-and-family discount to Pioli, his longtime right-hand man in New England, it’s reasonable to conclude this: At the very least, once the two men agreed in principle to make a deal, the Pats’ coach was unlikely to renege. Had that been the case with another team, I suspect Belichick may have been willing to pull back once he heard that a much higher pick – reportedly the Broncos’ first-round selection (12th overall) – was in play. Finally, I have no idea who leaked the news that Cutler had come up in trade talks, but if you’re McDaniels and Xanders, it’s naïve to think that the New England and Kansas City camps lacked possible motivation to do so. In Pioli’s case, the Broncos are an AFC West rival. Enough said. As for Belichick, though McDaniels seemingly departed New England on good terms, this may have been yet another opportunity to show an ex-assistant what happens when he leaves the family. After watching the way Belichick stonewalled Eric Mangini after the former Pats defensive coordinator took the Jets job, I can’t imagine it’s ever that cool when a staff member moves on, though Pioli is an obvious exception.

Realistically, I think it’s unlikely that Belichick went out of his way to make McDaniels’ life harder by leaking the information about Cutler. On the other hand, I’m fairly certain that Coach Hoodie isn’t sweating his ex-assistant’s plight.

All of this makes me wonder what Bowlen thinks about all of this – and how culpable he is for the current state of affairs. As someone who is close with John Elway, the Broncos’ owner understands the power of a franchise quarterback. In fact, largely because of Bowlen, few NFL players have ever wielded so much power within an organization. For example, even under a strong-minded coach like Shanahan, it was common knowledge in the ’90s during the team’s training camps in Greeley, Colo., that it was OK to miss curfew as long as you were with John. Right now, to continue with the movie theme, Bowlen reminds me of Kevin Spacey’s character from “American Beauty.” Having finally cut ties with Shanahan, he seems to be having the owner’s equivalent of a midlife crisis, with McDaniels the equivalent of the 1970 Pontiac Firebird. Bowlen’s apparent willingness to give up on an ultratalented quarterback who seems headed for stardom makes him, too, seem like an Amateur Hour contestant, when a successful businessman with two Super Bowl rings should know better. In the end, of course, it won’t matter. It’s Bowlen’s team, and it won’t be his job on the line if things don’t go well in the post-Shanahan era. Instead, if Denver doesn’t win, it’ll be the whiz kids who take the fall. My advice to McDaniels and Xanders is to reach out to Cutler, admit that they blew it and start kissing some serious butt. And to try not to let the sound of Shanahan’s laughter get them off message.