It's been a month since the Jay Cutler trade, and Bears fans are still glowing in its wake. Why wouldn't you be? In one fell swoop, for the cost of a few draft picks the Bears most likely would have mishandled anyway, GM Jerry Angelo acquired the first legitimately good QB the Bears have had since Sid Luckman. What's not to like?
Of course, Cutler has yet to play a game, and maybe things won't work out quite as nicely as Bears fans would hope, but as of now, it's all good things. In fact, part of the great enjoyment of this trade is occasionally checking in on the Broncos to see how they're doing with it. What fresh justification do they have for trading away their franchise QB?
This one, from Broncos owner Pat Bowlen, is probably the best yet:
"Pick up the phone! That's where we got off the rails," Bowlen said. "We had no other choice but to trade him."
Yes, yes, that's right, Pat, you had no other choice but to trade him. You couldn't have let him simmer for a bit. You couldn't have, like, bought him something nice. You couldn't have done anything to reaffirm that he was still your favorite player in the whole wide world, no matter what anyone else said. Nope! You simply had to trade him. Your hands were tied.
Thank goodness for Pat Bowlen. Without reductive circular logic like that, the best Bears trade in years might never have happened. Perish the thought.
Eamonn Brennan is a Chicago-based writer, editor and blogger. You can also read him at Yahoo! Sports, Mouthpiece Sports Blog, and Inside The Hall, or at his personal site, eamonnbrennan.com. Follow him on Twitter.
