Trust and Loyalty

While the title of this blog may seem to be a bit deep for a sports writer, these human values are, in fact, essential to the sports world.
A player must be able to trust his teammates and his team, but he must also be loyal to both of those entities.
In today's sports climate, the loyalty of a Chipper Jones, who has more than once taken less money to not only remain an Atlanta Brave but to also free up room for the salaries of other players, is rare.
More common is the "loyal to the highest bidder" mentality of a C.C. Sabathia or A.J. Burnett.
We can also see this in football, where Anquan Boldin has talked of wanting to play for someone else other than the NFC champion Arizona Cardinals.
Never mind the fact that playing with ace reciever capabilities in a system where every defense will be focused on the actual ace of the team, Larry Fitzgerald, should make any reciever drool.
That's a topic for another post.
This mindset of most athletes has forced teams to be, truthfully, untrustworthy to their players.
Why would a general manager, owner, or coach stick by a player when that same player is likely to skip town to a richer market after playing like an All Star in his contract year?
It is that attitude that, in my opinion, has created the Denver Broncos vs. Jay Cutler saga.
You see, Denver isn't stupid.
They've seen how players can treat a team, and they don't want to be the next victim.
While this attitude may be justified, that doesn't make it right.
Jay Cutler has been the franchise quarterback for the Broncos since before he was even drafted, but the lure of this year's "it" free agent Matt Cassel was just too much.
Rather than coming out from the start that Jay Cutler was the team's signal caller and nothing could change that, the Broncos entertained the idea of trading Cutler for Cassel.
Never mind the fact that Matt Cassel, before last year, was the guy wearing the cap and carrying the clip board for the Patriots.
Never mind the fact that Cassel was 11-5 with essentially the same offense that went 18-1 the year before.
Never mind the fact that the Patriots missed the playoffs for seemingly the first time this millenium.
The football world was talking about Matt Cassel as possibly even a better idea than Tom Brady, and the Broncos listened, especially once former Pats coordinator Josh McDaniel came on board as head coach.
Then, when Cassel ended up elsewhere, McDaniel and friends blew the trade talk off as no different than a water-cooler chat.
Like "Hey Josh, if you were to trade for Matt Cassel, would you trade Jay Cutler in a three-team deal that would involve the Buccaneers and players x, y, and z? I'm not saying, but I'm just sayin'..."
Totally casual, and they approached you, right?
So that makes you innocent in the whole thing, right?
Wrong.
See, what the Broncos were forgetting is that Jay Cutler has never been that guy shopping himself around.
He's established friendships and connections with his recievers.
He's never put himself out there as anything other than the Denver Broncos' quarterback, which is what McDaniel and company called him only after they didn't get Matt Cassel and they had to make nice with the guy they were willing to trade for someone else's second-stringer.
Notice who actually traded for Cassel: The Chiefs, who haven't been a relevant team in years.
Notice who didn't show up in the conversation: the Steelers, the Giants, the Ravens, the Titans.
Those are the winning franchises, who stick with their guns until their guns NEED replacing.
Those are the franchises who don't go out after the "next big thing" unless they need that position.
Those are franchises that have been to the playoffs repeatedly and even won titles this decade.
Notice a trend?