Pat Bowlen Finally Admits Broncos Made Mistake With Josh McDaniels

Pat Bowlen finally put himself, the Denver Broncos organization, and all of its fans out of the misery that was the Josh McDaniels era.

McDaniels finishes his career in Denver with an unimpressive 11-17 record, and a 5-15 record over his last 20 games as the Broncos head coach. Call me crazy, but that could have been a result of trading away a franchise quarterback and wide receiver, as well as a running back in which he failed to recognize starter ability.

The saga with Jay Cutler and Brandon Marshall was well-publicized. Though most turned on Cutler because of his earned and justified reputation as unbelievably immature, the way McDaniels handled the situation was just as bad.

As the head coach, he’s supposed to be able to reign in the franchise quarterback and get him to buy in. Now we’re seeing why Cutler wasn’t buying what McDaniels was selling.

Same thing goes for Marshall. I understand the impulse of wanting to get rid of a guy who is openly questioning you as the head coach, but McDaniels did nothing to avoid the situation. Like it or not, this isn’t college ball. These are grown men with big egos and part of being an NFL head coach is knowing how to manage them.

That’s why guys like Bill Parcells, Bill Belichick, Andy Reid, Dick Vermeil, Marty Schottenheimer, and others have been so good and so successful in this era of the celebrity player.

And it’s a big reason why McDaniels is now unemployed.

But if trading Cutler and Marshall away wasn’t bad enough, McDaniels also moved running back Peyton Hillis — a guy he pigeon-holed as a fullback — to Cleveland for Brady Quinn. Needless to say, he and the Broncos got fleeced in that deal.

Quinn is nothing more than the emergency quarterback and Hillis is on his way to the Pro Bowl. By my count, that’s 0-3 for McDaniels.

Cutler has given the Chicago Bears an added dimension and has them on top of the NFC North, and even though Kyle Orton has been able to put up big numbers with relatively unknown receivers, it’s still not the same thing a Cutler-Marshall hook-up would have been able to do.

Then on top of all that — all the awful personnel decisions in trading away franchise guys and a Pro Bowler he couldn’t see — McDaniels made the biggest bonehead move and traded back into the first round for Tim Tebow. Tebow was a system quarterback in college and doesn’t translate to the NFL at all.

As a person, it’s impossible not to like him, but as a quarterback it’s impossible to put the franchise on his shoulders.

And by picking him in the first round, that’s exactly what McDaniels was doing, even though he admitted that putting Tebow in the line-up — even though the Broncos have been eliminated from playoff contention — never crossed his mind.

Sounds like even he wasn’t sold on him as a quarterback. Which, of course, begs the question: why pick him in the first round then?

It’s a question that McDaniels no longer has the burden of answering, but it’s a huge dilemma the next head coach will have to figure out very quickly. Hopefully for the Denver faithful Bowlen doesn’t leave it to another young, unproven offensive coordinator seemingly hell-bent on driving his team into the ground.

UPDATE: Running backs coach Eric Studesville will take over as interim head coach.