Suggesting that cutting four receivers at once was an act of desperation is wildly off base, unless it's desperation to expect players to follow team rules and come to work every day. Cutting three starters, without adequate replacements at hand, is not an act a coach "desperate" to make the playoffs would make. The two moves -- Willy trade and the receiver purge -- are completely separate. Both moves can be criticized (and have been, until the cows come home, on this forum), but to link them as equal measures of desperation is simply wrong.