What's next?

[HPF Bob]

Barrett is dead on about McDaniels' personnel moves. What started the downhill slide is that Cutler felt mentored by Shanahan so he and McDaniels got off to a rather cold start. But then when it came out that McDaniels was working to bring Matt Cassel to Denver, it completely destroyed any trust on Cutler's part. McDaniels had already started to replace Broncos players with former Patriots which had drawn the ire of the Denver clubhouse. Surely if McDaniels had told Bowlen he wanted to replace Cutler, he'd have never been given him the job.

The Spygate II incident simply allowed Bowlen to sack McDaniels "for cause" and void the rest of his contract. It's not what caused McDaniels to get canned, rather the excuse needed to take him out now, rather than later.