I was down at the Bengal offices today and ran in Aaron Curry the LB out of Wake Forest who was in visiting the Bengals along with Chris Wells the RB from Ohio State. I met Aaron only for a few minutes but this is the part of being an analyst I don’t get to do as much as I would like to. I feel it is one of the most important things a team must do is visit with the potential draft pick and try to get to know the real player, because players are trained on how to act, but I believe if you visit long enough and know what to ask you can figure a player out.

I only met Aaron for a few minutes (and there is no way to ever now in a few minutes) but he did have a good energy about him and he seemed to be respectful. When you come into the NFL it is so important that you respect everyone, and when I say everyone I mean the trainers, equipment managers, video crew, etc. So many times when I was playing a rookie would walk in and disrepect the entire organization. Nothing lights a fire under me faster than to see that and once I established myself as an NFL player, I never tolerated that attitude if I saw it. If you want things and need help you go to the trainers, equipment guys and video guys. I can tell you some of my best NFL relationships I have made has been the group that did such a great job of taking care of me like my trainer’s, equipment managers and video crew. Thanks my brothers.

Jay Cutler to Chicago, what does that mean for the Bears? It means they have a QB that can play in all the weather conditions that you find at Soldier field. I played there as a Bear and I can tell you it can be one of the most perfect football days and then it can be the perfect storm and you need a QB that has the arm strength to play in those conditions. What will he bring to the Bears? He will help stretch this offense and the group of WR’s they have will get much better, but the Bears still do not have great talent at WR and that is something that will have to be addressed before you see all of the true benefits of having a QB like Jay Cutler. Ron Turner is the offensive coordinator in Chicago and he was my coordinator when I played there and I know this from playing for Ron he likes to go vertical and he will take advantage of Jay’s ability to do that. As you look at the WR’s they have on there roster there biggest match up guy is there TE Greg Olsen. There line is solid and there running game shows signs of being consistent with some explosiveness with 2nd year back Matt Forte. Something Jay will have to do focus on this year is to learn to manage his game better. What I mean about that is know what throws you can make and when you should make them.

Broncos, what does this mean for them, I’m hearing it’s a great deal? Really? You just traded your best player, you get a good QB (not great) in return and you get 2 first round draft picks and a 3rd round pick. How could this be better? You have no idea if those draft picks will be impact players, in fact 50% of them are busts so the odds are only one of them will pan out and will the one that makes it be special? Here is my point, how do you know it’s a good deal when you have no idea what kind of players you will be getting in return? The truth is we won’t know for several years if this was a good deal for Denver. The bottom line is, from playing in this league and studying it for 24 years, when you trade a QB that has made an impact this early in his career you may never recover from a decision like that. As I watch Josh McDaniel’s handle his first job I see disaster all over it. Let me explain why, when he went after Matt Cassel the writing on the wall started. He is trying to make the Denver Broncos the New England Patriots! At least that is how players look at it. When I went to the Chicago Bears and Dave Wannstedt was the head coach he made a critical error: he would always talk about what they did in Dallas and he would try and get players that played in Dallas and as players we hated that. We wanted to be the Chicago Bears we could care less about the Dallas Cowboys and it affected our attitude towards him. Josh McDaniel’s has done nothing to earn the trust of the Bronco players and if you think getting rid of there best player in Jay Cutler will grab the Bronco players attention you have another thing coming. Players aren’t concerned about getting trade as much as they think how stupid was the move and all he did was hurt our team. This is about as bad a start as a head coach could have.