Marshall- A Born Loser

Marshall lined up on scout team offense for Denver last week. (AP Photo)

NOTE: Brandon Marshall is appearing on ESPN’s NFL Live to talk about his practice behavior.  10:30 p.m. MST (8/27/09).

Who does this guy think he is? Jay Cutler? Just kidding. Sorry, I’m being hissed at by thousands of fans, I can tell. You’d think just in the sense of team spirit that Brandon Marshall would want to suit up to play his buddy Cutler in those prime time Sunday night lights. Instead, given the opportunity, he’s attempting to outshine Cutler’s return to Denver and the media highlighting that. He’s giving his best effort of being bigger than the game on his own, without even playing.

I’m guessing that by now you’ve seen the footage from TheDenverChannel.com showing Marshall, punching passes instead of catching, walking through running drills and overall just being about as disruptive as possible to practice. Here’s what we’re forgetting and maybe Marshall is as well, no one wants this kid. He’s been on the trading block, ESPN’s John Clayton reported back when Marshall Saga first opened that the Denver Broncos never received anything over a fourth round draft pick offer for the brain dead wide receiver.

Kyle linked to a story earlier today over at The National Football Post titled ‘Is [Marshall] killing the [Broncos],’ (sorry they have two misspellings in the title). In which Matt Bowman stated that it’s time for Marshall to put his contact behind him, but I think at this point, we’re even past that. Marshall might as well put his career behind him and hope that his degree in Liberal Studies from the University of Central Florida can sustain his new career as a real estate agent. Who is going to want this guy? He’s damned, even if he’s not a trouble maker, trouble finds him! In nearly every aspect of his life, I don’t need to go through his rap sheet here- you all know the multiple stories… We’ve all defended the man, but he has just become indefensible. The man is a loser and it’s time for Denver to suspend him.

It’s almost painful to say as a Broncos fan, because as disappointed as I’ve been in him and as frustrated as I’ve been with the fact that nearly every time Marshall is thrown the ball I’m not sure if he’s going to catch it or drop it. Well, come to think of it, maybe Marshall’s been trying to get traded since 2007… Dropping passes on purpose and there was that incident of him and former offensive coordinator Jeremy Bates. I digress.

I have no problem calling the man what he is, a cancer, as Mercutio screamed as he lay dying in Romeo and Juliet, “A plague on both of your houses!”

There is one certainty though, we can live without him, but can we ever live with him again? Sure, fans may point to Jabar Gaffney’s drop in the endzone when Denver played the Seattle Seahawks last week, but did you happen to see Marshall in the Pro Bowl last season at the goal line? Neither Peyton Manning or Cutler could get this guy to catch the ball, and those are two of the greatest quarterbacks in the league!

Let my kids look up to Brandon Stokley before they ever catch a glimpse of Marshall, I’ll take Eddie Royal at his worst over Marshall at his best. Yes, not having Marshall lining up at wide out is going to burn this season, but like a bad relationship that you should have cut off years ago, we’re just going to have to deal. As I’ve mused in previous podcasts and during live blogs I’m looking for rookie receivers Kenny McKinley and/or Nate Swift to step up a lot towards the end of preseason. Matter of fact, at this point we’re at the same place that we were last preseason, not knowing if Royal would step up, we only had Marshall and Stokley at receiver as sure things.

Well, now we’ve got sure things in Stokley and Royal and we’re only hoping that Gaffney, Chad Jackson, McKinley and Swift will step it up. Let us not forget about Tony Scheffler and Daniel Graham, not to mention our extremely talented backfield and the fact that they can catch. There are still only a handful of receiver sets in the NFL  that are more loaded with talent than Denver is, even minus Marshall.

So Nation, save the, ‘Trade Marshall for Anquan Boldin!’ Rants, there are free agent wide receivers as talented as Marshall still available. We’re not going to get anything for Marshall, he’s worth about as much as stock in an American car factory is right about now. We’ve got to stand strong as a team and hope that something brings Marshall to his senses. If he doesn’t have faith in Josh McDaniels, let a couple of wins prove him wrong. This situation isn’t going to turn into a Terrell Owens in Philadelphia thing, Marshall doesn’t have the talent that Owens did at that point. Nor are the Broncos returning from a super bowl loss.

Suspend him for conduct detrimental to the team, I’m pretty sure his lawyer can’t sue Denver, as at one point, if not currently he probably represented the Broncos (he represented Travis Henry two seasons ago as well). Play ball Marshall, you’ve seen what happened to Javon Walker when he tried this and read up on Ashleigh Lelie, because former Broncos receivers go the way of former Broncos running backs. They don’t survive outside the system. Now let’s focus on what’s important here, beating Jay Cutler the Chicago Bears.

UPDATED POST NFL LIVE INTERVIEW:

Just after publishing this post, Marshall did an interview with ESPN’s Trey Wingo, where Marshall said amongst a lot of ‘truthfully,’s and ‘honestly,’s (which is an indicator that he’s being anything but ‘truthful’ or ‘honest’ ), he started off by stating that he was just being, ‘Truthfully honest,” and that some of the footage was being blown out of proportion. He said that him sitting down and fixing his pants (which do not appear on the video) was blown out of proportion and that punting the ball was, ‘An air in judgement.’ If he could do it again, “I definately wouldn’t have punted the ball…” “Unfortunately yesterday, I kind of let my frustration get the best of me.” “I let my emotions get the best of me, but then again, half of that video was blown out of proportion.”

When asked what would happen if he didn’t get traded, “Well, then I have to be professional about it, I have to get ready for the season with the Broncos. Go out their and put my team in the best position to win… I feel like we have a great group of guys and a great chance of winning.”

He also referred to the fact that he was told that he would be traded, “Way back in the summer time,”

When asked if he would be a part of the Broncos roster when they played the Cincinnati Bengals Marshall stated that, “Honestly, you know what, there’s a lot of things up in the air right now… I can’t predict the future, I can only prepare for it.”

Overall, I felt like Marshall knows that he’s not going to be traded, he’s buckling down, is ‘honestly,’ embarrassed and will play for Denver this season.

But first a big back hand from a man that’s been to a couple of Super Bowls with Denver.

Former Bronco offensive lineman (and current Denver resident) Mark Schlereth followed the interview up immediately by stating that Marshall looked like a petulant child that hadn’t gotten his way and going on to say that,”The Denver Broncos are not Pat Bowlen, they’re not Josh McDaniels, they’re those other guys that you line up with and what you’ve done to them is disgusting.”