According to a report in the Denver Post, the Broncos recently contacted the Browns about possibly acquiring Brady Quinn and Cleveland told them that the third-year quarterback wasn’t available for trade.

Well this blows my whole Mark Sanchez-will-be-a-Cleveland-Brown idea straight to hell. I wonder if the Browns don’t want to deal Quinn to a fellow AFC competitor or just don’t want to deal him period. Or maybe they want to deal Derek Anderson instead?

Perhaps the biggest takeaway from this report is that the Broncos are still interested in acquiring a quarterback. When they traded Jay Cutler to the Bears a few weeks ago, several media outlets reported that Denver was satisfied with Kyle Orton as their starter.

But with two first round picks as leverage, the notion of Denver trading one of those selections for the opportunity to trade up to draft Sanchez surely exists. It just depends on whether or not head coach Josh McDaniels feels as though Sanchez can run his offense. If he does, then Sanchez could work behind Orton until he’s ready for game action.

Getting back to Cleveland, if Quinn is off the table, it’ll be interesting to see if the Browns make any trades this weekend involving players that are currently on their roster. For the past month, speculation has grown that the Browns could trade Quinn and/or Braylon Edwards by draft weekend, but maybe Eric Mangini isn’t as willing to part with those players as originally thought.
I’m dying to see what the Browns do at No. 5.

The National Football Post speculates that the Broncos are interested in USC quarterback Mark Sanchez and thus that’s why they are more willing to deal Jay Cutler.

There is always an historical perspective to these trades, and that’s the basis of what teams will ask when trading a player. However, this is a unique situation and it has two parts: First, what will the Broncos receive? And second, how can they be in position to fortify their quarterback position? It’s like a pool player who knows he’s going to make one shot but needs the cue ball in the right spot to make his next shot. For example, let’s assume they want Mark Sanchez. They have to receive a draft pick that will assure them they can get Sanchez to maximize the value of the trade. The key for anyone knowing where Cutler might be headed is knowing where the Broncos are headed with their quarterback position. Both moves go hand in hand. The answer lies in the kind of player Josh McDaniels wants playing quarterback in his offense.

My sense of all this is that it has nothing to do with Cutler returning calls or being belligerent, but rather the Broncos seeing a new player they’ve fallen in love with, i.e., Sanchez. This is just an educated guess on my part, but something usually happens to change a team’s position, and it normally happens when you find a solution to the problem. The Broncos have their eyes on someone, and I’m guessing it’s Sanchez since he has all the qualities McDaniels values in a quarterback. The talk will be about Cutler, but my focus will be on who will play quarterback for the Broncos.

The notion holds a lot of water, but it remains to be seen whether or not Sanchez is the guy that the Broncos have set their eyes on. Some believe that Denver will ship Cutler to Buffalo in exchange for Trent Edwards, which seems a bit absurd at the moment, but everything and anything seems in play at the moment.