Cutler Saga Reaches Inevitable Ending

There are certain relationships in sports that just cannot afford to be broken. Tops on the list is the bond between a coach and his quarterback. So when the world -- and, more importantly, Jay Cutler -- found out that new Broncos head man Josh McDaniels had tried to swing a deal for Matt Cassel, the situation in Denver was already beyond repair.

Sure, McDaniels put forth a little effort to try and remedy the drama, reaching out via text message to Cutler and stating that the AWOL quarterback was still the team's No. 1 option. It was too late by then, the half-hearted reconciliation attempts unable to heal the wounds. And now Denver finds itself with no option left but to unload its Pro Bowl QB.

Cutler will come across as a bit of a brat in this situation, perhaps rightfully so. But this borders on a complete public-relations nightmare from McDaniels' perspective. The former New England offensive coordinator -- who helped bring Cassel to stardom last season, for the record -- is four months from game planning for Denver's first preseason contest, and he's already jumped in front of the crosshairs.

If you think otherwise, just wait until McDaniels declares either Chris Simms or Darrell Hackney, Denver's current backups, as his replacement starter. Or until the team goes out and signs Jeff Garcia and Byron Leftwich, then watches both guys fail to replicate Cutler's 2008 numbers.

"It's shocking," Denver linebacker Spencer Larsen told the Associated Press. "It didn't seem like (Cutler) was going anywhere. This is the worst-case scenario."

Not to judge Larsen too harshly, but those aren't the words of a guy with total confidence in McDaniels to fix this.

Go ahead and find flaws in Cutler if you want. His 18 interceptions in 2008 are an easy target, as are his battle with diabetes and whatever maturity issues this brouhaha has brought to light. Here's what I know: In two full seasons as Denver's starting quarterback, Cutler has not missed a game and has thrown for 8,000-plus yards and 45 touchdowns, often while trying to help the Broncos offense overcome their defensive shortcomings.

He's 25 years old, under contract for three more seasons and has the potential to be one of the top handful of quarterbacks in the league for a long time.

And McDaniels basically kicked him to the curb.

It's fair to hand some of the blame for this to Cutler, too -- plenty of people will argue that he should have sucked up his pride and come back to Denver after Cassel-mania died down. It's hard to poke holes in that argument, except to say that Cutler probably believes he's one of the better quarterbacks around, and his new coach's first act in office was to completely and totally disrespect him in favor of another player at his position.

Try as they might -- even though they didn't try very hard -- there was just no turning around for Cutler and McDaniels once McDaniels decided to get in on the Cassel discussion. It's a delicate balance that coaches and quarterbacks keep. Once the relationship goes sour, it's almost impossible to rescue it.

In this case, the relationship couldn't be saved because there was no relationship to begin with.