Even if the Dolphins had been willing to trade receiver Brandon Marshall within the division, the Patriots likely wouldn’t have been interested. Even if the Dolphins had offered to send picks to get the Pats to take him.
In an interview with Michael Silver of Yahoo! Sports, the current Bears wideout talks about issues with Patriots offensive coordinator Josh McDaniels that plagued their mutual time in Denver.
The relationship was poisoned from the get-go by the former head coach’s out-of-the-gates decision to trade quarterback Jay Cutler.
“I don’t know what he was thinking,” Marshall said. “I know a lot of people on the outside consider that a very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very bad move. . . . Did I say ‘very’?”
Marshall then reviews the circumstances that went from Marshall saying that owner Pat Bowlen had promised to trade the player, that McDaniels reneged, that McDaniels offered Marshall an incentive-based contract with unrealistic factors like rushing touchdowns, that McDaniels threatened to take action against Marshall for conduct detrimental to the team, and that Marshall decided that if he’s going to be accused of conduct detrimental, he’s going to engaged in detrimental conduct.
It was all forgotten as the Broncos went 6-0 in McDaniels’ first season as the coach, culminating in a win over the Patriots and a post-game press-conference hug between Marshall and the head coach.
“That was for show,” Marshall told Silver. “I definitely was excited at the time, but to be honest, I was just trying to patch things up with them.”
It later fell apart, with Marshall being banned from the stadium after a late-season hamstring injury and ultimately traded to the Dolphins.
Tonight, Marshall gets a crack at the Broncos in his preseason debut with the Bears. “I’m just looking at that logo,” Marshall said. “It was one of those situations where a lot of us could have ended our career there. It sucked at the time when it was all blowing up but I think it happened for the best, and we’re in a better place now because of it.”
Bears fans starved for a high-end pass-catcher surely agree, for now. And they’ll likely continue to agree as long as Marshall avoids conduct detrimental to the team. Or McDonald’s bags on the floor. Or hugs dispensed under false pretenses.