Josh McDaniels Apparently Bragged About his Accomplishments Before Berating, Trading Jay Cutler

Ted Sundquist is the former general manager of the Denver Broncos (disclosure: I wrote a series of articles for his website a couple years back) and he just opened up his thoughts on the development of quarterback Jay Cutler. It's an incredible look into the scouting process and how many moving pieces are being processed behind the scenes.

Sundquist goes in depth on how his scouts viewed Cutler as a prospect and how the quarterback was expected to be groomed into a starting role. Unfortunately for Cutler, the Broncos went south after he was drafted and it ultimately led to Patriots offensive coordinator Josh McDaniels being selected as the team's new head coach.

The following is an excerpt from the article (emphasis added).

Shortly after Josh McDaniels moved into his office at Dove Valley, he called in Cutler and his agent, Bus Cook, for a closed-door meeting. The story goes that McDaniels began with a 20-minute dissertation of his resume, how he'd worked his way up the ranks in New England to become Bill Belichick's right-hand man with the offense and how the team would have been nowhere the year before without his tutelage of backup Matt Cassel. He continued on with justification of his hiring by Bowlen.

After the perplexing recitation of accomplishments, McDaniels suddenly shifted gears.

He began to bash and berate Cutler and his game to the tune of a verbal flogging neither had ever witnessed. The expletive-laden diatribe went on for a few minutes, after which Cook stood up and told Cutler they were leaving. As they walked down the long hallway past Bowlen's office, Cutler turned to Bus and said, "Get me out of here. I don't care how you do it."

First off, whaaaaaaaaaat?! Josh McDaniels was bragging about how he was Belichick's protege and his influence on Matt Cassel's development and the success of the 2008 team?

Secondly, I'm totally guessing this is from the agent's perspective, hence the "Cutler turned to Bus" part of the story.

Third, it was probably a tactless dressing down of Cutler's game by a new head coach that hadn't gained the respect of his players. It's ironic that this exact circumstance is presented earlier in the story as to how Cutler was promoted to starting quarterback over Jake Plummer: as an undeserving new guy that the team didn't respect.

McDaniels has spoken about how he's grown since his time with the Broncos and, let's be serious, there are far too many negative stories surrounding his time in Denver for all of it to be made up.

I'd be very interested to hear McDaniels' side of the story, or to hear what he learned from his experience. Hopefully he's learned to be a better leader and listener. Because even if this story is very much one sided, there's probably a kernel of truth that McDaniels didn't handle the situation as well as he could have, and that he, too, needed to develop before becoming in charge of a team.