Jay Cutler is not the best player on the Denver Broncos’ football team anymore.
(Tribune / Nuccio DiNuzzo)
Jay Cutler is not the best player on the Denver Broncos’ football team anymore.
In fact, he’s not even the best player on the Chicago Bears’ football team.
But, he may be the best player on Green Bay’s team.
Hours after the Broncos had already been graced with their first win of the season, the Bears gambled on their franchise quarterback and lost. Cutler crumbled in crunch time yet again.
The Broncos, on the other hand, completed perhaps the luckiest, gutsiest, most aware team play I’ve ever seen in professional football.
On a day when Denver eyes were on their offense and readily prepared to glance at Chicago’s, a true miracle was witnessed. At least, a miracle of football proportions. With the game and the perception of Josh McDaniels’ system on the line, Orton’s ball was underthrown. Cincinnati cornerback Leon Hall made a play, tipping it away. But Brandon Stokley was simply in the right place at the right time snaring the victory on his way to an 87 yard jaunt to the end zone.
Or was it that simple? Maybe it was the end result of months of preparation and hours upon hours of relearning what it means to be a team. Has there ever been a more tangible example of the fruits of being there for a teammate?
When it came down to it, when it really and actually counted, the Broncos pulled through. Denver, with their 215 yards of total offense pre-Stokley, found a way. It wasn’t pretty for 59 minutes, and the game was at its ugliest when the defense inexplicably ceased to blitz and allowed the Bengals to score the go-ahead six with 38 seconds left, but a W is a W. Sometimes it is better to be lucky than good.
Of course, I’d be lying if I told you Jay Cutler’s four-interception loss to Green Bay didn’t sweeten the pot, just a bit. Orton was off with his glove on, and his injured finger played a small part. But the only finger that seems to carry any weight now is the big orange and blue digit raised high towards the Windy City.
With 13 minutes left and a feeble six-point lead, the Broncos appeared set to seal the win when they stopped the Bengals yet again and earned possession on their own 35 yard line. On third-and-ten, in Cincinnati territory, Orton found Correll Buckhalter on a screen pass for what should have been a first down, but the drama hadn’t reached an all-too-familiar level yet. A holding penalty brought up third-and-16, and Orton took a sack removing the Broncos from Matt Prater’s range and setting up the Bengals only scoring drive.
This isn’t last year’s Denver team, however. This isn’t the same group of men that folded a three-game lead in the division with three games to go. Cedric Benson’s one-yard plunge could have crippled the hopes of Denver circa 2008, but this is a different group.
This isn’t Mike Shanahan playing high school lifeguard and looking good while letting the children run the pool. This isn’t Jay Cutler pulling his helmet below his eyes and cursing the circumstances. And in case you didn’t notice, this wasn’t Brandon Marshall making exorbitant personal predictions about his stat sheet.
This was Kyle Orton putting his mistakes behind him and realizing that the players around him will do anything and everything possible to back his play and wrest victory from the certain grasp of defeat.
Was it lucky? Yes. Was it a one-in-a-billion play that won’t ever happen again? Probably. Was it a win so extraordinary that Broncos’ detractors will still brood from their perches and claim that this team isn’t that good? I think so. But was it a win? Definitely.
(DenverBroncos.com)
The Broncos are 1-0. Kyle Orton’s failure to put enough oomph behind his winning pass doesn’t change that. The defense’s hesitant play on what could have been the game’s most meaningful drive does not equal a loss. Say what you want about how it happened, but the fact remains – it did happen.
Denver did hold Cincinnati to seven points. Mario Haggan, Andra Davis, and Darrell Reid did manage to plant Carson Palmer into the turf. Alphonso Smith did ease the pain of all those cracks about getting a nickel corner for a franchise passer with a versatile day thwarting the Bengals attempts. And Brandon Stokley did finally hang on to a pass when it mattered most. Welcome to Broncos football, 2009.
2008 is over. The offseason is kaput. And the days of suffering through four interceptions and a lazy pass to Al Harris on what could have been a game-winning drive are no longer.
There’s a team playing at Invesco field now, and they’ll take a lucky break when it presents itself. These days, around Denver, opportunities are caught by the right players, not the players on the other side of the ball.
Related: Chicago Tribune: Cutler, had to see it to believe it
See more from Hunter Ansley at DraftZoo.com
Stokley having the presence of thought to run the width of the field along the goal line was the most telling part of this whole event. Tactically he would have been right to sprint straight into the end zone and secure the 6 points, but strategically he burned several seconds off the clock and set up a Hail Mary only attempt for the Bengals… If this was a loser team that was simply lucky then there would have been no room for thought much less strategic thought. Now if only the Bronco’s would stop burning years off its fans with these kinds of hijinks…
Hunter,
To hype up this win for the Broncos win and gloat about Cutler’s four interceptions is redicilous. Josh McDaniels is showing everybody that he is not the “offinsive genious” that he was hailed to be. We were not playing a dominating defense like Pittsburgs, we were playing the Cincinnati Bengals who went 4-11-1 last season and we were only able to score 6 points off of long field goals in 59 minutes and happend to win it off a fluke play in the last minute.
Now I’m going to go back to the preseason and yes I do realize that it is preseason, The offense was not there except for the last game against Arizona when 3rd string rookie QB Tom Brandstater took the reighns. You would think that a player like Kyle Orton would want to make a good impression to all of the Denver fans by comming out and moving the ball down field and scoring points but he has not done that. Instead he has shown up to the games physically but not mentaly and done nothing for the offense, or maybe its McDaniels play calling. Maybe he is not getting it done? One thing that he is very good at is ripping a great offense apart and leaving it in shambles. I do give him credit for the defense, it looked good on Sunday but once again we were playing Cincinnati so it will be interesting to see what they do after week 4 when they start playing some teams that if they beat it will be worth while to brag and lift our chin up.
As for Jay Cutler, love him or hate him you have to admit that he is a good solid QB. So he had a bad game Sunday, I’ll put one of my paychecks down that says he doesn’t play like that next game. Kyle Orton came out in his first preseason game and threw 3 picks in his first 3 drives as a Bronco and he only played 2 quaters, what would have happend if he played longer. You take away the 87 yard TD pass to win the game away and Orton finishes the game 16/27 156 yards passing and 0 TD’s.
Was it a win? yes. Did Cutler throw 4 INT’s in a Bears loss? yes. Do we throw our low scoring maricle win in everybody’s face? NO.
There is a lot of football to be played and our schedule has some serious challenges after week 4 ahead of them so lets not go out and start prading around the streets of Denver saying Super Bowl ’09 just yet and lets take it a week at a time.
I’m no mcdaniels supporter (yet) but regardless of stats it was a well coached game, and none has to apologize for getting a win on the road ever. I don’t understand the cutler bashing though “cutler crumbled in cruch time again” doesn’t cutler have at least 5 or 6 4th quarter comeback wins? While it was sweet to see him play poorly on the road against green bay, anyone with a quarter of a brain would trade orton back to the bears for cutler in a heartbeat.
Jay Cutler will end up doing fine in Chicago. The offense fits his style better, and above all else he’ll be more comfortable because he got what he wanted. He’s that type of guy in my mind.
But I do think it was a relief-filled day for the Broncos considering they got a huge win in a scintillating, and lucky, fashion, while the guy whom everyone chastised them for losing struggled in a big way. It was validating even if it was beyond improbable.
And Cincinnati’s defense is not a bad unit at all. They were a top 12 defensive team last season, and have only gotten better on that side of the ball with the free agent additions of Tank Johnson and Roy Williams, and the drafting of Rey Maualuga. Not a bad defense by any stretch of the imagination. Their record was poor last season because of their offense, not their ability to stop offenses.
But I do agree that Cutler is a talented quarterback. He’ll likely never play that badly ever again. Orton wasn’t as awful as you make it seem though. He didn’t throw any picks, and in a tight game, that was invaluable. Our offense is new and is still learning a different system. And the defense looked great against a potentially great offense.
Thanks for the comments.
Hunter
Yo Deke-
The Bengals defense was ranked #12 overall last season. Since then they’ve added Rey Rey, Tank Johnson and Roy Williams. Rivers was out most of last season. Give credit where credit is due — the Bengals played a great defensive game yesterday.
I’ll acknowledge our offense needs to improve, but at least we didn’t turn over the ball and put our defense in a bad spot, ala Jay Cutler. Cutler isn’t a good, solid QB. He throws across his body, off his back foot, into quadruple coverage. He was the sole reason the Bears lost their opening game, as their defense was playing really well. Your team leader can’t have four turnovers, then expect the receivers to take all the blame. Good riddance.
After finishing this comment, I just realized that Hunter already stated most of my points, but there you go — IN MY OPINION.
So I guess that I should have clairified my point better, all that I am trying to say is Kyle Orton is not the answer for the Bronco’s offense. Yes Cutler does throw to the opposing team quite a bit but last year he also threw for 4526 yards and 25 TD’s. I belive that his win/loss ratio would have been a ton different if he had a defense to back him up in the years that he played here. I hope that Orton proves me wrong but I don’t think that he has the leadership ability or the tallent to take any team in the league anywhere.
It was a great win for us, it showed a lot of character by the team as a whole! Orton will imrove but he will not be the answer in the future. Our D has to be proud of their effort and I hope our team becomes a defensive powerhouse in the next few years, I prefer strong defense over offense anyway. Our offense is very talented and will only get better each week though there will be plenty of potholes on the way to becoming a solid unit! Great work Broncos!!! As for Cutler, he is a Bear and I do not care about him anymore.