QB controversy: This guest isn't leaving

Dave Christie, Special to the News

Published September 18, 2006 at midnight

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It’s on.

The quarterback controversy that was loitering just outside the gates of Dove Valley has burst through the door, raided the fridge and kicked its feet up on the coffee table. Worse yet, the look on its face says, "Don’t even think about asking me to leave."

Jake Plummer quarterbacked an offense that staggered its way to three field goals. Somehow that was enough to win a game that was part football, part prescription sleep aid, but it wasn’t nearly enough to keep Jay Cutler off the TV screen and out of the minds of Broncos fans. Even though the game plan was ripped out of the Trent Dilfer "Whatever you do, don’t screw it up" playbook, Plummer still coughed up a quarterback rating of 56.7, threw one interception and failed to complete a pass when the Broncos twice managed to get in the red zone.

Mike Shanahan now has to lie in the uncomfortable bed that he made by trading up for the opportunity to pick Cutler in the first round. It might turn out to be his best move in a checkered past of personnel decisions, but having a Pro Bowl quarterback in 2008 does Shanahan no good now. And now is when the Broncos are expected to win.

Putting this offense in the hands of a rookie just two games into the season is not an option. The coach knows it, and the players know it. They might be the only ones that are so sure. The Cutlermania that was generated in the preseason grows more hysterical as the Broncos struggle to find a cure for their Offensive Dysfunction.

As the Broncos look at the chalk outline that used to be an offense and try to figure out how to fix it, they have a nice big distraction along for the ride. The press will be asking less about the opponent and more about their own quarterback. It won’t take long for nerves to fray as the players search for different ways to answer the same question. Ask an Eagles player about T.O., and he still might punch you, even though that distraction is now long gone.

Yet there are nine players on the roster who won’t have to worry about any of it. The offensive line has been off limits to the press since 1995. No interviews. No sound bites. Nobody seems to mind. It’s all been treated with a boys-will-be-boys complicity. But while Rod Smith is fielding the 56th question about the quarterback’s play, you can bet he’ll be looking sideways at Tom Nalen and his buddies as they quietly pack up their stuff and leave without saying a word.

This will be Shanahan’s greatest challenge yet as a coach. He needs to find a way to make this offense produce while Plummer-proofing it at the same time. He needs to get Cutler ready to play. And he needs to keep his locker room united while a quarterback controversy blows through it.

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