As it stands less than an hour after it was announced, the trade of Jay Cutler from the Denver Broncos to the Chicago Bears could go down as one of the biggest gambles — that either did or didn’t pay off — in NFL history.

In recent memory, this is the closest thing that I’ve seen to a Herschel Walker-type trade in awhile.

When you consider the fact that the Broncos brought in Mike Nolan as defensive coordinator and a veteran like Brian Dawkins on defense, now it looks like organization has just set itself back for who knows how long. At the end of the day, quarterbacks are hard to find. A guy of Cutler’s ilk, it’s tough to just let him go. Of course you have draft choices, but draft choices are just that — an unknown commodity.

Everything is in question right now. Beyond this, we just don’t know.

So, the question I’m asking at this point is who is really getting the raw end of this deal? Is it Nolan, who has aspirations of being a head coach again? Is it the veterans like Dawkins? Or the whole team? What about Broncos fans? Or, how about the Bears, who are now getting someone that could be viewed as problematic?

The Broncos had no choice. They’re playing with the cards they were dealt. It’s a scenario where they had no idea the situation would get to this point. No one saw this happening.

From the Bears perspective, they’ve now answered a lot of their own questions. They’re Super Bowl-ready now. Now they have the quarterback to get them there. Was the price too high? I don’t think it was too high. Their defense is intact. Of course they’ll have to sign Cutler at some point, but they also would have had to sign the two first-round picks they traded.

I’m sure they’d much rather pay a known commodity like Cutler than two unknown draft choices. Think about it.

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