Jeff George Thinks He Could've Won a Super Bowl With Vikings

We're a month into the Broncos-Cutler standoff, and here's what we know: Jay Cutler is a sensitive sort, and new head coach Josh McDaniels might be in over his head, at least when it comes to dealing with moody Pro Bowl quarterbacks. Yet through it all, public opinion seems to be firmly behind the organization.

I have no idea how this turns out, and at this point, I don't care; I just want it to end so we can get back to the important stuff: Terrell Owens, Michael Vick and Brett Favre's impending return to the sport he loves so much. But before moving on, I just want to point out that Jeff George, perpetually on the comeback trail, has weighed in on the situation and, shockingly, supports Cutler:

"Really, it's unfortunate that a team would do that," George said. "I know people say he's a crybaby and needs to suck it up, and I understand a coach saying that every position is open for competition. But it's different when it comes to quarterbacks. You need to be a little sensitive to that position.

"The quarterback position is so fragile, and people just don't understand what goes into it. It's not just on Sundays that you're on the spot. You're the leader of the team. You're the face of the franchise. The minute it comes out that they're thinking about getting rid of you for someone else, you feel like the coach isn't on your side, and there's a trust issue.

Jeff nails it. And as Yahoo.com's Michael Silver writes, George also thinks Cutler is wrong to boycott the team's voluntary workouts, saying, "I would tell him to just go in, bust your butt and work as hard as you can over the offseason. Go in and be a leader like you think you can be. Don't give 'em any excuse to say you're a crybaby."

That it took a former NFL quarterback with great physical skills and a mercurial manner to point this out is ironical, granted, but it does validate what Jason Whitlock has been telling us for most of this decade about his high school buddy.

No mention of Whitlock and George would be complete without an actual "if Jeff was still playing" reference. So here ya go, courtesy of Silver:

Yet the competitor in George can't let it go, especially when he sees teams like the Vikings, for whom he put up huge numbers while going 8-2 as a starter in 1999, and the Cowboys, who struggled last season when Tony Romo missed several weeks with an injury and 40-year-old backup Brad Johnson was ineffective.

"If I was in Minnesota," George said, "I guarantee I'd be wearing a ring right now. I just can't get over why somebody like [coach] Brad Childress wouldn't take a look at me and have me as the third guy on their roster. Put me in and I'll pick up right where I left off in '99, but this time with Adrian Peterson, so I wouldn't have to throw it nearly as much."

I can't believe I'm about to write this, but after watching the lethal combination of Gus Frerotte and Tarvaris Jackson, and Brad Johnson and Brooks Bollinger, I'm with George. I'm not willing to say the Vikings would have won a Super Bowl -- or that the Cowboys might've finally won a postseason game -- but I can't imagine the outcome with George under center would've been any worse.

Of course, when Childress was asked if he had any interest in George during the '07 season, he offered this: "Probably maybe [he could] go to a fantasy camp or something like that. 'Downside' would probably be, I think, kind."

Look, I get where Childress is coming from -- George was 39 at the time and he's not a guy you'd build a team around. But in hindsight, it's not a completely insane idea. In fact, some Vikings fans might define insanity as Childress sticking with Jackson as long as he did.

Put differently: at this stage of their careers, is a 39-year-old Favre an upgrade over a 41-year-old George?

And even if the answer is "maybe a just a little," then why is it such a ludicrous notion to suggest that George might still be able to play when people were falling over themselves to declare that Favre would magically make the Jets into playoff contenders? Maybe George should've had Bus Cook as his agent.

I will now undergo a battery of psychological tests for my Whitlock-ian urge to promote a Jeff George NFL comeback. Frankly, it's a disorienting experience.