Sam Adams has a great sit down chat with Champ Bailey on the state of the Broncos.  [InDenverTimes.com]

Brandon Marshall is looking to have some fun this season with the offense and Beanie Wells just dropped down Denver’s board by not making his scheduled visit to Dove Valley.  [Denver Post]

Woody Paige can’t get over his dis-like of “the coach” in his latest mailbag.  [Denver Post]

Mike Mayock says the Broncos just have to go for Mark Sanchez in the draft.  [Fanhouse]

Bill Williamson and Mike Sando debate Denver drafting a QB in the first round and the impact around the league.  [ESPN Hashmarks]

Jay Cutler is reaching out to Plaxico Burress to become a Bear.  [USA Today]

Gary Kubiak will be speaking at a High School coaching clinic at CSU.  [Denver Post]

Kyle Orton thinks an offense first team suits him just fine.  [Denver Post]

Tony Moss from Seattle likes the Broncos taking Peria Jerry or Evander Hood with the #18 pick.  [Seattlepi.com]

Here’s your chance to be a Broncos Draft Pick.  [Colorado Springs Gazette]

Troy Aikman feels that Cutler was never McDaniels guy from day one.  [USA Today]

Fox Sports is carrying a story that Cutler didn’t want to play for Eric Mangini and blocked a trade sending him to Cleveland for Brady Quinn and another scenario with Washington involved in a three way deal.   Bus Cook has come out and denied it already.  [Fox Sports] [Cleveland.com]

Josh McDaniels says the Broncos can win with another QB.  [Boston Herald]

Fortune finally smiles on Chris Simms now that McDaniels announced that he has a chance to compete for the starting role.  [Denver Post]

Five linebackers who could fit into Mike Nolan’s 3-4 scheme.  [InDenverTimes.com]

Ron Brace “had a private workout on the Boston College campus with the Denver Broncos.” [PFT]

Tony Scheffler has been working out independently with Nuggets strength and conditioning coach Steve Hess.  [Denver Post]

This post opines why the Chiefs should be interested in dealing with the Broncos on draft day if they send both first round picks to KC for the #3 overall.  Seriously, who comes up with this stuff?  [Kansas City Star]

Mike Klis gives his thoughts on the Cutler Trade, doesn’t expect much to change at RB, and fields stupid Charger questions in his mailbag.  [Denver Post]

Jeff Legwold reports that Josh McDaniels isn’t afraid to make tough decisions.  [Fox Sports]

Brian Dawkins purchased tickets for Dan Leone to the Eagles Broncos game this season.  If you remember he is the Eagles employee who was fired for voicing his opinion on Facebook.  [CNET]

Lead Broncos writer Sayre writes why the Broncos will pass on Sanchez and go all defense in the first round but on second thought they could take a runningback.  [Bleacher Report]

The Mailbag of Broncos Fan Angst.  There are some truly epic rants in here.  [Kissing Suzy Kolber]

Darrell Hackney

Third string quarterback Darrell Hackney has been released.  This completes a changing of the guard at the QB position for the Broncos with Cutler traded, Ramsey signing with the Titans and now the release of Hackney.  The Denver Post speculates the Broncos will select another quarterback with one of their 10 picks in the 2009 draft after this move.  Hackney accumulated no official game stats in his time with the Broncos organization.

Mike Klis disagrees with John Elway, saying that trading Cutler was a good day.  [Denver Post]

Friend of Broncotalk Stephan Fatsis weighs in on the trade.  [New York Times]

Peter King gives an inside account of how the moves went down.  [Sports Illustrated]

Jim Armstrong says the Broncos could “brew a historic draft” with 5 picks within the top 84.  [Denver Post]

Friday Pat Bowlen sent out a letter to the season ticked holders, then had it posted to the official site addressing all the recent drama.  [denverbroncos.com]

Kyle Orton is already in to work at Dove Valley.  [Denver Post]

In case you missed it, Patrick Ramsey signed a deal with the Tennessee Titans.  [Titansonline]

McDaniels welcomes Kyle to Denver and a certain someone is already missing Jay.  As usual, this one is 18+.  [Kissing Suzy Kolber]

The Denver Examiner has a preview of what local sports history to see right now on display at the Colorado History Museum’s exhibit.  [Examiner.com]

Peyton Hillis

Peyton Hillis was 6 feet 2 inches tall, 240 pounds heavy, running a 4.57 forty entering draft day in 2008. Many draftniks had Hillis as their top fullback, and they projected he would be taken somewhere around round 4. Just like many great players do, Hillis fell to the 7th round where Denver gladly decided to take him. Due to the erratic injuries all several of the running backs took this season, Hillis landed himself a starting job. This southern gentlemen was the first back to rush over 100 yards against the Jets monstrous defensive line, and averaged 5 yards a carry before his fantastic catch against Kansas City, which lead to an injury. Many believe, including myself, that if Hillis never suffered that injury Denver would have found themselves in the playoffs. This would most likely have kept Mike Shanahan and Jay Cutler in the Mile High city. However this is not the case. Now Denver fans are left to wonder what will happen in the wake of a completely new team. Lucky for Peyton Hillis, Josh McDaniels’ spread offense is a perfect fit. Need more proof? Match Peyton Hillis up against New England back Kevin Faulk. Click here to read the rest of this entry »

Kudos to Rich Eisen who respectfully played hardball with Chicago Bears quarterback Jay Cutler. Jay really didn’t want to answer some of those questions, so he stammered and I’m not exactly sure what he meant in any of his responses. As a guy who bleeds orange and blue, I’m not sure what to think in this day and age. Check this.

Update: You can get to the audio archive of the entire conversation here.

“I’m not looking for a certain kind of guy, I’m looking for a guy that can follow the system, be accurate, make smart decisions, lead the team to win, Jay could’ve been that guy”

“The off-season program is not mandatory, but I think the guys like to be around each other.  Also, the players like to be in Denver with the weather this time of year.  We have an amazing turnout for the offseason workouts, something like 96%.”

Scott:  “Why Matt Cassel?”

Josh:  “The reason we were brought up in this conversation…  we were trying to fill a lot of spots in free agency, then we got called into the thing because a lot of teams had interest in our quarterback (Cutler) and they knew I had a history with Matt.”

On the upcoming draft:  “We’ve got a lot of ammunition to target the players we want to get on draft day”

On how to use Hillis this season:  “I really like Peyton Hillis.  You may know we used a lot of different backs in a lot of situations in New England.  We will use a back any which way we can.  Denver knew last season as we did in New England that 4 backs is not enough for one season.”

Scott: We saw the hoodie in that press conference, are we going to see it on Sundays too?

Josh: “I will try hoodie on the sideline, but I kinda like that zip up pullover too”

If you tune it right now, you can listen to 1043 The Fan in Denver interview Josh McDaniels.  Follow the link here.

Below is the first 5 minutes of the Josh McDaniels press conference today in which he addresses the Jay Cutler trade.  By address, I mean vague mentioning. You can get a full length audio version of the presser here.

John Clayton breaks down the trade.  “When the Bears decided to get into the talks, they were going to go in to win it.”  [ESPN]

Audio of Adam Schefter on with Dave Logan reviewing the deal.  He points out that the Broncos had their eye on Kyle Orton all along.  The Gary Myers link below corroborates this theory.  It’s not in this clip, but Adam said that he would be running down the details of what each front office offered for Cutler.  [850 KOA]

Woody Paige gets some quotes out of Elway on the Cutler trade.  John is saddened by Jay’s departure.  [Denver Post]

Mark Kiszla is doing cartwheels now that Cutler is gone.  Shocker there.  [Denver Post]

Dave Krieger gives us the bitter pill in his “Welcome Back to Mediocrity” post.  [Denver Post]

Peter King has an excellent article detailing how Cutler may not be happy with his decision long term.  He also has an excellent quote.  “You can only cry wolf so many times before you finally get called on it.”  [Sports Illustrated]

Who got the better end of the deal yesterday?  Too early to tell, but “the experts” weigh in on the two videos we posted yesterday.  [Broncotalk]

NFL analyst and writer Gary Myers claims that the Jets were never given the chance to re-up the ante in the bidding for Jay Cutler.  That certainly should raise some eyebrows in Denver.  Gary says the Jets are better for it however.  [New York Daily News]

Total Access had Mike Mayock on to review the draft implications of yesterday’s trade.  [NFL.com]

Dave Logan also had Shannon Sharpe on the show yesterday.  Shannon sums up the situation perfectly IMO.  [850 KOA]