Following weeks of increasing unhappiness with the performance of Jake Plummer, the Denver Broncos decided to bench Plummer and insert Jay Cutler for last night's game against the Seattle Seahawks at Mile High stadium.
The Broncos lost the game. They lost despite the installation of a game-plan seemingly designed to minimize the impact of playing a new quarterback. The game plan, as it unfolded last night, comprised a big focus on the running game, presumably to limit the number of passes that Cutler would have to throw, and relatively few deep passing plays.
Despite this game plan, which the Broncos running backs executed well (particularly Tatum Bell, who is not 100% due to toe problems), Cutler still managed to make several classic rookie mistakes, including one horrible attempted throw as he was being sacked that was intercepted and returned for a TD by the Seahawks.
The only reason that the Seahawks did not roll over the Broncos more comprehensively was that Matt Hasselbeck seemed to be trying to match Jay Cutler in general mediocrity for the Seahawks. Playing with a broken bone in his left hand that clearly impacted his ability to grab snapped balls, and still wearing a brace to protect his recently-sprained knee, Hasselbeck looked almost as unsure of himself as Cutler.
As the Rocky Mountain News pointed out, the supreme irony of last night's game was that, in all probability, Jake Plummer could have won the game for the Broncos using that offensive game plan. As the article points out, with running yardage like that, Plummer would have been able to limit his throws too.
In a moment that would have supremely ironic were it not so comic, Plummer did get to make a play...a fake field goal on 4th and 1 towards the end of the game that seemingly resulted in Jason Elam tweaking a hamstring while running for his life to escape the swarming Seattle defense. Elam did finally kick the field goal, but he looked injured as he left the field. Not a good thing to have happen to one of your most reliable players with the final run-up to Christmas looming.
Despite the attempted talking-up of the performance afterwards from the Broncos, this was a horrible loss, one that places the Broncos on the fringe of playoff elimination.
Mike Shanahan, probably way too late, has made Jay Cutler the starter, and now the Broncos will, in addition to saving their season, have to work with a rookie quarterback who is, on the evidence of last night, clearly not the Second Coming of Tom Brady.
Another couple of games like last night, and Shanahan's "genius" tag may be recycled more in sarcasm than in admiration. He left it too late to make this kind of fundamental change to his team. 5 games ago it might have made sense. Now, with the season truly on the line, it places an enormous amount of pressure on the Broncos and a novice quarterback. Every opponent from now on will be loading up to stop the Broncos running game and daring Cutler to throw the football. The opposing defensive coordinators will be fine-tuning blitz packages and ensuring that their players know that #6 = The Target. Cutler will be a marked man for the rest of the season.
As for Jake Plummer, he is in the best possible position. He gets a front-row seat to watch the action, and, because he has essentially been fired as the team's #1 quarterback, he cannot be held accountable for any results from here on in. If Mike Shanahan inserts him in any game for any reason other than an injry to Cutler, he will be admitting that the decision to bench Plummer was, at the very least, ill-timed, and quite possibly wrong.
Next season, Jake Plummer will play elsewhere. Once again, the ghost of John Elway has dragged down another Denver Broncos quarterback.