McDaniels' time might run out before he really gets started

The sound you hear coming from the Rocky Mountains is the clock ticking on what could be a very short tenure in Denver for new head coach Josh McDaniels.

If that clock hadn't started when Pat Bowlen hired him, it certainly started when he decided he could win more games with Matt Cassel than he could with Jay Cutler. Throw in the recent trade that sent Cutler to Chicago for a pair of first round picks and that clock might actually be ticking a little faster than normal.

Most head coaches worth anything in the NFL do everything they can to make sure they have a franchise type quarterback to hitch their wagon to when they take over a team. They do not run off the 25 year old Pro Bowler who is on the verge of becoming one of the elite signal callers in the league.

When it comes to describing how McDaniels and the Broncos handled this fiasco, stupid doesn't even begin to do it justice.

I know Mark Schlereth and Trent Dilfer keep telling you how Jay Cutler is nothing more than a big baby with a sense of entitlement, but the bottom line is McDaniels screwed the pooch on this one. He didn't pick one of those players from that wet paper bag disguised as the Broncos defense to get rid of. (I hope he uses those picks on some defensive players.)He picked the the guy who's thrown for more than 9,000 yards and 54 TD's in just two and a half years as a starter.

Schlereth can say what he wants about Cutler, (he basically been calling him a snotty nose punk) but how would he have felt if the Broncos would have attempted to trade his beloved John Elway for Sean Salisbury during his playing days? I'm not saying Cutler is John Elway, but he sure looked like the Broncos best hope under center since Elway decided to hang it up.

Dilfer, who couldn't be Cutler if he was playing the latest edition of Madden, keeps preaching the importance of having a "team". He, of all people, should know the importance of the other 52 guys in uniform when the guy under center is nothing more than a glorified ball boy.

While they both have been using Cutler as target practice since this whole thing started, it doesn't hide the fact McDaniels basically said no to the steak dinner at Ruth's Chris (Cutler) so he could grab a value meal from the drive thru at your favorite fast food chain. (Cassel, Orton and Chris Simms)

As far as Cutler's role in this situation goes, it's understandable he didn't want to speak with his new head coach once the trust between the two of them was broken. That said, he should have answered the phone when the guy who's been signing his hefty paychecks the past three years wanted to talk to him. It doesn't matter at what point Bowlen did or did not get involved, Cutler owed him that much.

The ticking from that clock is getting louder by the minute.

McDaniels, despite the mess he's created, has an unquestionable pedigree as far as X's and O's go. His people skills on the other hand, are going to be up for debate before his time is long in the Mile High City.

Do you think Pat Bowlen asked his new head coach if he actually liked Cutler as his quarterback before he hired him? I'd like to think he did and I imagine McDaniels gave Bowlen some speech about how he would have never left New England if he wasn't for the opportunity to coach Cutler. That all may be true, (Which it probably is.) but Bowlen's spider sense should've kicked in the moment his new coach even floated the idea of sending Cutler to Tampa Bay in a three team deal that would have brought Cassel to Denver.

When the story first broke, McDaniels claimed Denver didn't put Cutler on the trading block. That' s about as truthful as Pacman Jones telling Roger Goodell he went to that strip club just to get something to eat.

The bottom line is, for whatever reason, McDaniels didn't want Cutler and he jumped at the chance to ship him out of town in order to bring in Cassel. Dumb as it might have been, it was even dumber of him to lie to Cutler about it.

Think about it for a second. Do you ever hear of a team with a "franchise" quarterback in this day and age fielding calls for their trigger man if he's not available?

Didn't think so.

If that was the norm in the NFL, we'd hear Tom Brady and Peyton Manning's name being mentioned in trade talks every off season because teams like the Lions and 49ers would forever be trying to get them.

That clock is on full display in the middle of downtown Denver for every Bronco fan to see at this point.

McDaniels run as the new head man in Denver has definitely gotten off to a rocky start, but like any new regime or administration, you have to give it time to see if things are going to work out.

Unfortunately for McDaniels, time might not be on his side.