Broncos QB Cutler asks to be traded

The ongoing soap opera between the Denver Broncos and their presumptive starting QB Jay Cutler went from bad to worse on Sunday.  Following a meeting between Cutler, his agent and team officials the 4^th year veteran out of Vanderbilt demanded a trade.  His version of the meeting’s events and the team’s differ wildly, though their differences are appearing more and more ‘irreconcilable’.

The situation began around the time of the NFL’s trading deadline when the Broncos reportedly began entertaining trade talk for Cutler, along with a reported desire to acquire then New England Patriots signal caller Matt Cassel.  After the situation became public and/or the deal for Cassel fell through, the Broncos attempted to do damage control but Cutler was having none of it.  He was livid that the team had him on the trading block, and that anger was exacerbated by the team’s apparent duplicity in 'fessing up to the fact. 

Since then, the Broncos have attempted to sit down and work things out with Cutler with the most recent meeting occurring on Saturday afternoon.  Here’s how Cutler himself describes what transpired during his sitdown with head coach Josh McDaniels:

"I went in there with every intention of solving the issue, being a Bronco, moving forward as a Bronco, We weren't in there but about 20 minutes, McDaniels did most of the talking and as far as I'm concerned, he made it clear he wants his own guy. He admitted he wanted Matt Cassel because he said he has raised him up from the ground as a quarterback. He said he wasn't sorry about it. He made it clear that he could still entertain trading me because, as he put it, he'll do whatever he feels is in the best interest of the organization.”

"At the end of the meeting, he wasn't like, 'Jay, I want you as our quarterback, you're our guy.' It felt like the opposite. He basically said that I needed to tell him if we can't work this out, to let him know.  I thought he was antagonizing me and that was disappointing because I was ready to move on, committed as a Bronco. Really, I figured we'd hash things out, shake hands, laugh a little and move forward. What happened [Saturday] was the last thing I expected. If I didn't think it could be fixed, I never would have come back to Denver. It was painfully obvious to me and Bus [Cook, his agent] it's not something they want to fix."

Not surprisingly, the coach offered a differing version of events:

"I really have wanted to avoid a he-said, she-said thing but it's only fair for us to present the Bronco side of the story rather than let things get taken out of context. There's been a pattern here for the past two weeks the way things have been represented in our communications. I don't think anything that happened Saturday was out of the ordinary. At the end of the meeting, Jay said he had thought about things quite a bit and requested a few more hours to mull things over. He said he wanted to talk to Bus on how to proceed. He was gonna call me on my cell phone and that never happened. Instead, Bus called (GM) Brian [Xanders].

"Again, I think that's been a pattern. I couldn't get him to talk to me for two weeks or to talk to (team owner Pat) Bowlen. Then when he came here this weekend, we couldn't get a one-on-one meeting, just me and him alone. He wanted Bus in there, so I had Brian sit in, too. And it was the four of us. There wasn't any yelling, none of that. I can't believe we get to a totally different interpretation.”

"It's an unfortunate set of circumstances that has cropped up, a potential distraction and we've done our best to limit that. The main message I want to get out is that we're excited to start our offseason program Monday. It's an exciting time for us."

Monday’s meeting isn’t mandatory, and Cutler has indicated that he won’t attend.  In the meantime, both he and his family have put their Denver area homes on the market and every indication is that he’s got no interest in playing for the Broncos and that’s fine with the team.