Although Jay Cutler has yet to throw a pass in the NFL, he’s no rookie dealing with the hard realities of fame. The hotshot, young Broncos quarterback got his college education in Music City, USA, where truth is taught through the twang of a country song.
“In Nashville, you see Hank Williams Jr. and Willie Nelson out on the town,” Cutler said.
Isn’t Hank Williams Jr. the honky-tonk rabble-rouser who sings about all his rowdy friends coming to party at the house on Monday night, with the NFL game on the tube?
Not to drop any names, but Hank knows Jay.
And, as Williams has attested in the lyrics of a song, being a big star everybody in town knows on a first-name basis requires a whole lot more talent than picking a guitar or throwing a football.
In “American Dream,” Williams condemned money-grubbing football lawyers messing up a player’s motivation with the rhymes of his song. In another country hit about the pitfalls of fame, Williams declared: “Mindin’ other people’s business seems to be high-toned, I got all I can do just to mind my own.”
Cutler, named the Southeastern Conference offensive player of the year as a senior losing 34 of 45 games during his college career at lowly Vanderbilt, arrives from Nashville with his eyes wide open to fame’s unrelenting stare.
“Everyone’s watching, no matter where you go, whether it’s dinner, out for a drink or to a movie. People are going to watch. And you always have to be on your toes,” Cutler said. “You never know when you might do something wrong and it will end up in all the newspapers. So you always have to be a little paranoid. Sad as that might seem, a little paranoid is the way you have to be.”
When you are the fresh, new face of a football-crazy state, the only thing harder than beating a zone blitz is dealing with all the second-guessers.
In Nashville, you might catch Alan Jackson shopping for groceries or spy Dolly Parton eating breakfast. But, in celebrity-starved Denver, the Broncos quarterback is the king of Colorado.
Brian Griese gave a cold shoulder to the hassles of fame, while Jake Plummer seems to regard Broncomania with a shrug of whatever, dude.
But Broncomania is a beast that must be fed, and as John Elway discovered, if you feed it the wrong Halloween candy, the gossips will talk bad behind your back. Before winning a Super Bowl, the Denver quarterback must learn to deal with all the small aggravations that can drive a regular guy crazy.
In the rough-and-tumble game of second-guessing, nothing is out of bounds.
“As a quarterback, people are either going to love you or they’re going to hate you,” Cutler said.
What’s hard is to not let the cheers inflate your ego or allow the booing to harden your heart.
At the start of practice on Friday, as Denver veterans stole a sneak peek at their hotshot young quarterback during warm-up drills, Cutler and Plummer stood 30 yards apart, tossing soft passes, facing each other, like two gunslingers waiting for the real bullets to fly.
No NFL franchise uses a first-round draft choice on a quarterback it plans to sit on a dusty end of the bench for two or three years.
At the end of Cutler’s first week of work with the Broncos, somebody innocently asked about gearing up for the training camp competition against quarterbacks Plummer and backup Bradlee Van Pelt, starting the question with the words: “When do you start …”
Before the inquiry could be completed, Cutler interrupted with a mischievous grin and said that was an excellent question.
When does Cutler start as quarterback of the Broncos?
Until further notice, it’s destined to the hottest and most hotly debated sports question in Denver.
The hard truth be known, the quarterback who can best handle the glare of scrutiny will ultimately win the job.
“You have to embrace the pressure and know, as a quarterback, all eyes are going to be on you,” Cutler said.
Which reminds me of a country song.
In fact, I think it was Hank Williams Jr. who crooned: “Do you really want it? Do you really need it? You gotta keep on grindin’ just to keep it.”
Staff writer Mark Kiszla can be reached at 303-820-5438 or mkiszla@denverpost.com.
