Right Decision, Wrong Decision, Only Time Will Tell

It's 1992 and Dan Reeves head coach of the Denver Broncos has just been fired, in his 12 years, with the Broncos he had a 110-73-1 regular season record, six playoff appearances, and three trips to the Super Bowl.  Why was Reeves the winingest coach in Denver’s history fired? It was a strained relationship with John Elway and his desire to trade the Pro Bowl quarterback.

Now we fast forward to February 28, 2009 and Josh McDaniels, the newest coach of the Denver Broncos as a matter of fact only 47 days as the head coach, wants to trade a pro bowl quarterback, does he get fired?  No, this time Pat Bowen owner of the Denver Broncos decides to trade the quarterback and keep the coach.

Before John Elway Denver had 24 starting quarterbacks in 23 years, the team’s record stood at 144-182-9 with three playoff appearances and one trip to the Super Bowl.

The quarterback with the most years of service in this 23 period was Craig Morton with five years and a quarterback rating of 79.5.

John Elway’s quarterback rating over his 16 year career was 79.9, with a regular season record of 148-82-1, a 14-7 playoff record and two Super Bowl victories.

After Elway retired Brian Griese took over the reins for four years with a record of 34-30, a quarterback rating of 64.9 and a loss in the team’s only playoff game.

Brian was replaced with Jake Plumber, who also quarterbacked the club for four seasons, with a quarterback rating of 83.6 a record of 49–26, a 1–3 playoff record and one Pro Bowl appearance.

Then along comes Jay Cutler our quarterback for the future, he was going to be around for the next 16 years. His first two and a 1/3 seasons he had a quarterback rating of 87.1, a 17-20 record, with no playoff games and one Pro Bowl appearance.

How good is Jay Cutler?

Well, he went to the Pro bowl in only his second full season he threw for 4,526 yards, 25 touchdowns and 18 interceptions. He was able to keep Denver in a lot of games even with major injuries to the running game and the worst defense Denver had in years. Had the defense been able to hold teams to 20 points or less Denver could have won the AFC West with a 12-4 record.

In comparison, Jay Cutler had a higher completion percentage and a higher quarterback rating in his first two seasons than John Elway, Brian Griese, and Jake Plumber as well as Peyton Manning, Eli Manning and Brett Favre in their first two seasons.

Right decision, wrong decision, only time will tell.