Jake Plummer makes me really sick … sometimes

Former Denver Broncos quarterback Jake "The Snake" Plummer hasn't filed his retirement papers with the NFL after announcing his intention to leave the game last month, leaving me waiting and wondering.

The ambivalence I feel toward Plummer leaves several questions in my mind.

What happens when I don't have Jake Plummer to kick around anymore?

But perhaps more importantly, will another quarterback come along who is as anti-establishment, with Jim Morrison-style beard, Adam Morrison caliber "pornstache" and a smoking hot Broncos-cheerleader girlfriend?

I really, really doubt it.

The self-described "scumbag" ruined more of my Sundays than anybody I know, his terrible play coming at the worst possible moments, leaving me at times sick to my stomach with disappointment.

But yet his regular-season winning percentage for the Broncos was better than John Elway's.

Like every former relationship, memories of the good times are easiest to recall, like Plummer's whipping the New England Patriots' all-world quarterback Tom Brady in their last two head-to-head meetings.

And could anybody possibly have friends as cool as Plummer's, like military hero Pat Tillman, his teammate for the Arizona Cardinals who was killed in Afghanistan?

How can I ever forget that Plummer was accused of driving his grey-colored Honda Element like a blind teenager and got busted for road rage?

The incident solidified him as a great role model for all us wannabe, thirty-something rebels. He rolled against the norm to the end.

Plummer, 32, who's played 10 NFL seasons, the last four under constant, tabloid-like media scrutiny in Denver, says he wants to leave with his health intact.

Good for him, he's a smart guy. Just ask Broncos coach Mike Shanahan and superstar wide receiver Rod Smith, who were at times the only two people in Denver who seemed to be sticking by the skinny, fumbling, back-breaking-interceptions-throwing schmuck.

But doesn't wanting to leave with your health mean — in pro-football terms — he's got some game left?

I believe it does and I feel cheated. I'd settle for Jake in Tampa, where Denver unloaded him, but I may not even get that.

Plummer's the kind of guy I expect to never make a decision on retirement, leaving me to search for another gritty/loser to root for as he causally walks away from the greatest sport ever, taking his Neanderthal-facial-hair look to new lengths and decides to spend a couple years "walking the Earth."

This kind of Plummer-like behavior makes those, like me, who have followed his antics for the last four years hate him all over again.

Maybe he'll come back and have a couple more great seasons. Maybe he'll come back, fully "stached," and play terribly.

Well, whatever happens, at least I can now afford to buy a Broncos jersey with Plummer's ugly No. 16 on it, a number so ridiculously unflattering on him that he himself probably hated it.

Maybe somebody will give me their old Plummer jersey, or I can pick up a ratty-old-used one at the local Goodwill.

David Cole is the Columbia Basin Herald's county reporter. A recent Adam Morrison knee injury and signs of Jake Plummer's possible retirement have left him questioning the meaning of life lately.