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Eventful. And then some. The highlights:

—The Bears, with having dealt away their draft (in effect) for Jay Cutler and the late Gaines Adams, and desperate to make a splash with their fanbase (and try to save GM and coaching jobs), went a’spending. The new players? Julius Peppers, Chester Taylor, and Brandon Manumaleuna. Peppers, obviously, was the big prize, with $42 million guaranteed of the $91 million dollar contract. Taylor gets a nice chunk of change to get to be a featured back again, and as for the former Charger TE, that one is more of a head scratcher on the surface. I guess that means Greg Olsen really is available in a deal, although it is hard to see what role Manumaleuna will have in a Mike Martz offense. David Haugh in the Chicago Tribune with some words on Chicago going the full Dan Snyder.

—In Baltimore, the Ravens went a LONG way toward fixing what ails their offense when they traded for Anquan Boldin and signed him to a three-year contract extension. As a Bengals fan, this move really displeases me. If Derrick Mason does not retire, then a receiving corp of Boldin, Mason, and Donte Stallworth is about one million times better than what Baltimore ran out there last year and makes them, in my mind, the favorites in the AFC North heading into season at this point in time. Mike Preston in the Baltimore Sun adds an obvious seal of approval to the deal.

—The Karlos Dansby to the Dolphins deal makes a lot of sense. Bill Parcells built teams feature a good linebacking corp, and Dansby is certainly a good linebacker.

—Dunta Robinson gets to play close to home in Atlanta and gives the Falcons much needed CB help in a division that features Drew Brees and the Saints offense.

Ravens QB Coach Hue Jackson is the Raiders’ new offensive coordinator.

Jackson interviewed with the team for an unspecified capacity last week, which apparently was the offensive coordinator position. He also interviewed with the Bears for their vacant offensive coordinator position.

The Bears are still looking for an OC, and can’t seem to find one through the numerous interviews they’ve had. Jackson presumably turned down the Bears for the Raiders, and unless Al Davis was promising him a ton of money, this doesn’t make much sense on the surface.

Would you rather work with Jay Cutler or JaMarcus Russell? Better yet, don’t answer that.

As always, it’s more fun to look in on pain as opposed to joy when it comes to the morning after in the NFL. It just is. So, let’s see what is being said in…:

—…New York! Nothing good about the Giants, who have indeed lost the cover of the Yankees, and that four-game losing streak is now painfully exposed. Gary Myers in the Daily News:

Tom Coughlin stopped for a moment Sunday night before heading down a hallway leading to the coaches’ locker room. He had a blank look on his face as he stood and stared back into the players’ locker room, saying nothing. Clearly, Coughlin was still in shock over the most excruciating regular-season loss in his six years as the Giants’ coach, the fourth in a row after the 5-0 start, the one that could eventually blow up the season, if it hasn’t already.

“It’s not the end of the world. We’re not going to panic,” Mathias Kiwanuka said. “We are professional athletes. We are here to do a job. We’re just going to get it done. The bottom line is we got seven more games left and seven chances to turn it around. It’s not over.” Even though the Giants played better than they had in getting outscored 112-61 the last three weeks by the Saints, Cardinals and Eagles, and even though seven games remain to turn this around, it could be that this loss sucked what little life was left out of the team. The season is now officially on life support.

Yes, it is, as New York is in the Wild Card mix, not really in the win-the-division mix. And the Wild Card mix is a tough spot to be in, in the NFC, with Atlanta and Philly running ahead of them and the carcass’ of Green Bay and Chicago just behind them. Not optimal, to say the least.

—…Chicago! Where the memories of defenses past is haunting any Bears fan at this point. And should be haunting Lovie Smith. David Waugh in the Chcago Tribune on the Smith issue:

If you are looking for answers from Lovie Smith to explain why his team responded to a sense of urgency with apathy, keep looking. You might say Smith didn’t have a clue after the Bears’ 41-21 loss Sunday to the Cardinals at Soldier Field. “I don’t have a lot of reasons to give you on why we played that way,” Smith said with a straight face. There are 5.5 million reasons that’s not acceptable. As one of the league’s highest-paid head coaches, Smith is the most qualified person to help everybody understand why his historically inept defense gave up 31 points again in the first half. That happened for the second time in three weeks — and only five times in Bears history before this season. Smith is best equipped to explain how the Bears gave up 182 yards rushing to the worst running team in the NFL. And why a defense that can look so dominant for a 5-minute stretch in the fourth quarter needs to fall behind 34-7 before showing a pulse. If Smith cannot offer plausible reasons the Bears played as awfully as they did, exactly who can? More significantly, if the head coach fresh off a jarring 20-point loss cannot take a stab at what went so wrong, should anybody believe he grasps the ability to make it right?

This isn’t another call for Smith’s job. After the Bears miss the postseason for the third straight year as is now likely, Smith should be given a playoffs-or-else mandate for 2010. Given Smith’s resume and contract — he has $11 million and two seasons left after this one — that’s fair, firm and fiscally responsible. This has nothing to do with how Smith acts at the podium either. This has to do with whether Smith knew Sunday how the season got away from the schizophrenic Bears. Or if anybody on the Halas Hall payroll without a degree in psychiatry knows.

Really? One more year for Smith after this? That Super Bowl appearance was awhile ago now. And I don’t think the return of Urlacher fixes what is ailing them. More importantly, the appearance that Smith has a grasp on the problem and how to go about fixing it would go a long way to appease what is becoming an increasingly angry fanbase. And right now, Smith is not giving off that appearance.

—…Green Bay! Losing twice to Brett Favre, that must hurt something awful. Losing the previously winless Bucs? Fetid icing on a crapcake. Mike Vandermause in the Green Bay Gazette on the carnage:

This was as embarrassing at it gets for the Green Bay Packers. It marks the low point of the Mike McCarthy coaching tenure in Green Bay and raises serious questions about where the Packers are heading. “Every loss is embarrassing,” linebacker Nick Barnett said. “For me, it doesn’t matter what their record is. I think the most embarrassing thing for us is that we had this game won and we let them make a play.” Actually, no loss in the last four seasons under McCarthy was quite this bad, and a terrible Buccaneers team made not just one play, but several late in the game to stun the shell-shocked Packers. Blowing an 11-point fourth-quarter lead against one of the worst teams in the NFL is bad enough, but the colossal collapse could ruin the Packers’ season.

Yes, it could indeed do that. Or, the swiss cheese offensive line has already done that. I would wager the latter sure as hell led to the former. Seriously, Aaron Rodgers may end up hospitalized when Green Bay has to go to Pittsburgh.

Ugly.

Jay Cutler looked pretty damn good steering the Bears in the first half of a 27-17 win (the comments following that article in the Denver Post are quite entertaining). The forumla was solid: wait out the emotion, make no mistakes, let the defense set a tone, and then one noteworthy drive was enough to put the game on ice. The Bears were up 17-3 at halftime, as Cutler went 15 of 21 for 144 yards and one touchdown (no picks) including leading the Bears on a 98-yard drive just before halftime.

Woody Paige on the scene for the Post:

In the three-ring circus of a game: Josh McDaniels’ Denver debut was a disappointing dud; Kyle was Ordinary Orton again, then cut the index finger on his business hand; and, in the unkindest cut of all, Jay Cutler produced a 98-yard touchdown drive before halftime and proved to some of the 73,519 people in the neighborhood, but not the one in the hoodie, why he shouldn’t have been traded….In the first halves of three games the Broncos have been outscored 55-16. They don’t have a fumble recovery or an interception yet. They have thrown five interceptions and fumbled three times. McDaniels even admitted that the Broncos “cannot play like that and beat a good football team.”

Then I have some outstanding news for Josh McDaniels, as Denver’s first game of the season is at Cincinnati, a team seldom mistaken for “good”. As for Denver’s pre-season, it, like the off-season, has been rather “uneven” (to be kind). Downright toxic to be more precise. That is a team that needs something good to happen to it. My hunch is that good thing wears stripes on their helmets.

As for the Chicago take, Rick Morrissey in the Tribune:

Besides the 17 points Cutler helped put on the board and the 98-yard drive he led, the good news was that he didn’t let his emotions get the best of him. That’s the real issue with the guy. He can put up big numbers in his sleep. If he can stop his temper and frustrations from seeping into his play — if he can reach a truce with himself — the Bears have the stud quarterback they tell us they have. The bigger emotional test is going to come when his teammates aren’t playing well, in games that actually matter. But for now, this is good enough.

That’s actually a pretty good handle on Cutler at this point.

It is still hard to fathom that a guy at his age and his position moved in the off-season, but there you have it. The Bears should benefit for the next 7 – 10 years.

Quoth Jay Cutler:

“Oh yeah,” Cutler said. “I think they’re definitely going to ask me. If they don’t ask me, I’m going to tell them what I think because I’ve got to be the one throwing to them on game day, and I’ve got to trust them. But (offensive coordinator) Ron (Turner) and I have been on the same page since the start of training camp in what guys we wanted to see working in with me and what guys have stepped up and what direction we want to go with this group.”

Awesomeness.

Pat Bowlen: It was all Jay Cutler’s fault

Josh McDaniels: I have no regrets

Chicago Bears: Thanks for the franchise quarterback! Seriously! Thanks!

I would presume, a day of abject happiness for Bears fans as the news sinks in that they have been unexpectedly aggressive in addressing their quarterback woes. They didn’t just meet the moment, they took the moment out for a nice dinner and then went back home with the moment and had sex with the moment like a 19-year-old on Viagra. No bitching aobut the price to be paid, no equivocating about the cumulative value of draft picks, just a lead pipe certainty that when 25-year-old quarterbacks with Jay Cutler’s skill set come available (which, actually, is never), you don’t miss the opporutnity.

—Greg Couch in the Chicago Sun Times with some Chicago flavor:

I got all sorts of e-mail like that the last two days after writing a brief column saying Bears fans need to demand that Angelo make the big deal and finally bring a star quarterback to town. The truth is, the fans already had been making that demand. The Bears heard you. Now they need some receivers, a better offensive line and a defense. Sure, that’s a lot. But they have just changed the face of the franchise, just started building around a chance-taking, Pro Bowl star quarterback. Finally.

By the way, that was Couch’s last column for the Sun Times after 12 years with the paper. He is headed to AOL’s Fanhouse area, yet another sign in an endless sea of signs that newspapers are dying.

—Rick Telander in the Sun-Times:

Well, knock me over with a Kyle Orton neckbeard hair. I didn’t bother paying attention to the Jay Cutler Sweepstakes because I knew the Bears would never seriously pursue the disgruntled Denver quarterback, never offer the Broncos enough to get him and of course never actually acquire him. But they did. Excuse me while I climb back into my chair and pour myself a dose of settle-down powders. This is quite simply the biggest trade in Bears history, and it’s enough to make an entire city faint.

Opening day in three days with the White Sox a few years removed from a World Series title and the Cubs coming off back to back division titles, the Bulls in the playoff chase, the Blackhawks sitting 5th in the Western Conference with the playoffs almost here, and now this. Heady days for fans of Chicago sports teams.

As for Denver, well, denouement. With a bullet.

Dave Krieger in the Denver Post, Welcome back to mediocrity:

The past five Super Bowl champion quarterbacks are Ben Roethlisberger, Eli Manning, Peyton Manning, Ben Roethlisberger and Tom Brady. Franchise quarterbacks all. A Super Bowl has been won twice in recent years by mediocre quarterbacks — Brad Johnson and Trent Dilfer — but they played with two of the best defenses in NFL history. The Broncos will not be accused of that anytime soon.

The only important question now is whether Josh McDaniels understands this. If he does, he will do what he has to do — including using some of those new draft picks — to move up in the first round of the draft and take Southern Cal’s Mark Sanchez, the one quarterback in the draft who fits the apparently stringent requirements of his offense. If he doesn’t, if he uses those extra draft picks to shore up a defense that badly needs it, he will consign the Broncos to the world the Bears inhabited for a generation, a world the Broncos inhabited for most of their first 23 years.

—Mark Kiszla goes the hard-ass approach, with No player bigger than team:

“In Denver, where the Broncos are loved like family, and a blockbuster NFL trade can be as painful as a divorce, there is only one way to score this deal: Quarterback Jay Cutler lost. The Broncos and everybody who loves them won. The local NFL franchise is better off not knowing the identity of its starting quarterback than being stuck with one who did not want to be here. The Broncos are bigger in Colorado than any one man, even if he is a 25-year-old quarterback with Pro Bowl credentials and the chutzpah to arm-wrestle the legend of John Elway. After fewer than 100 days on the job, new Broncos coach Josh McDaniels not only has made it clear there is a new sheriff in town, he has locked up the ghost of Mike Shanahan and thrown away the keys once thought essential to the team’s success.”

Well, there is that. No question that every single Denver Bronco player left knows where they stand vis a vis their new coach. That would be somewhere well below him. Now, and this is the fascinating part of this experiment, it is all on Josh McDaniels. There is no quesiton McDaniels is the man, and all that comes with. It will be fun (for all non-Broncos fans anyway) to watch this unfold over the next few years. This is something very new for the NFL, this kind of deal involving this quality of player at that particular position. Not really any precendent for how this will unwind. Strange days.

Oddly enough, both Chicago and Denver may eventually end up being “winners” in this.

For Kyle Orton, this year’s number one, and next year’s number one. For those of you scoring along at home, that is two number ones and a three. Or exactly the number that Mike Golic this morning said no one would pay for a 25-year-old all-pro quarterback entering his prime. Chicago also gets Denver’s third fifth round pick this year in addition to a pro-bowl quarterback.

Mike Golic. Wrong. Always.

Good move for the Bears. Not sure what the Jets et al were waiting on. As for the Broncos, I still deeply disagree with their having gone down this road, but since they decided to head in this direction, at least they did so decisively. So they got that going for them.

Interesting times. The swamp has been kicking it around here, here, and now, here. Drop by with a thought or two.

Good luck Josh McDaniels. It’s all on you, now: