The Road To Jay Cutler Runs Through Cleveland

To Washington, Detroit, N. Y. Jets, Tampa Bay, and anyone else interested:

If you want Jay Cutler, you have to understand how this trade will work. Denver is not the team you will need to deal with. Cleveland is.

Many of you may think that Denver may be stressing over this. They are not. Denver is probably stressing the least over this. Why, you ask? It is because Denver's part of the deal is done. They know they will be trading Jay Cutler and acquiring Brady Quinn and Shaun Rogers.

Now where Jay Cutler goes still remains to be seen, but it is of no concern to Denver. Sure, Denver did say they want two draft picks for Cutler. That was a trap for Detroit. They may be foolish enough to take the bait. If they trade the number 1 and number 20 pick for it, Denver wins. However, Denver could still use those picks as part of deal that still includes the package for Quinn and Rogers.

Odds are, though, that Detroit will not be foolish enough to go for this. Then we are back to square one.

I also think Denver made that statement because they are not interested in Jason Campbell from Washington.

It seems that Denver is playing mind games and has been for some time. It was very coincidental that at the owners meetings Denver and Cleveland made statements about the direction of their teams and their QB situations. Both were filled with "ifs" and "buts." That tells me that they had a deal already in place and they need a third team to complete the deal.

So, based on all that, this trade will not be about who can come up with the best deal for Denver. It will be the team that has the best deal for Cleveland who can get him.

Therefore, don't even call Denver. If you do, they will just say "work it out with Cleveland."