KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Red-faced from the dog day afternoon heat and the humiliation of getting treated like a chew toy by the mangiest mutts in the NFL, young Broncos quarterback Jay Cutler lost his cool in the final seconds of a 33-19 loss, as he knocked Kansas City linebacker Demorrio Williams to the Arrowhead Stadium turf after the whistle had blown a play dead.
“I think he just flopped,” said Cutler, after toppling Williams.
No, it was the Broncos who flopped. They looked as bad as any 3-1 team in this league can look. Lucky for them the opponent was lowly Kansas City, or the score could have been much worse.
The ineptitude of the Denver defense came as no surprise to anybody guilty of cringing while the Broncos have surrendered a whopping 117 points in September.
But it was the inexperience of Denver’s youth, including glaring mistakes by Cutler, that should be the deepest cause for concern if coach Mike Shanahan intends to make good on his guarantee of a playoff berth.
Throughout the AFC West, the book on Cutler now seems to be that to throw him off his game, you try to get under the intensively competitive 25-year-old quarterback’s skin. After picking off two of his passes, the Chiefs apparently succeeded in roiling Cutler’s blood, if his confrontation with Williams late in the fourth quarter was any indication.
“He just got frustrated. The whole game, I was kind of saying little things to him. He’s a good player, but it just wasn’t his day. It was our defense’s day,” Williams said.
But here’s the sad part: Cutler’s shot at Williams was maybe the first time Sunday the Broncos didn’t just stand there and take abuse from the sorry Chiefs, who had lost 12 consecutive league games.
When Cutler was asked if Williams, who wore No. 53 for Kansas City and started jawing with Brandon Marshall and other Broncos within minutes of the opening kickoff, had been a source of irritation, the quarterback tersely insisted: “I don’t even know who that is.”
So it must have been a rude introduction for Denver’s offensive leader, who suffered a meltdown in the third quarter, when his careless throws were reminiscent of either a young John Elway who fired first and asked questions later or the hippy-dippy Jake Plummer who drove Shanahan to distraction, depending on your level of optimism for Cutler’s prospects as a Pro Bowl quarterback.
But make no mistake. Williams made certain Cutler knew who he was. How did he irritate Cutler?
“Just talking,” said Williams, grinning slyly. “That’s what it’s all about. Just going out there making plays, having fun.”
The fire in Cutler’s belly is definitely good. When the steam comes spewing out his ears, however, it’s bad. As Shanahan told me last week, “With the quarterback position, when you’re going through tough times, are you tough enough to handle the critics? Are you tough enough to believe in yourself, even when other people might not believe in you?”
Not to belabor the obvious, but when one of a team’s hardest licks of the game is delivered by a quarterback, the Denver defense might have even more serious issues than the 198 yards rushing by Kansas City’s Larry Johnson.
Said Williams: “I don’t think the Broncos wanted it like we did.”
Ouch. That harsh analysis almost hurts worse than trying to tackle Johnson, who churned his thick legs and stomped on Broncos until it occurred to me what might be the most appropriate nickname for this Denver defense:
The Orange Mush.
“It wasn’t like they beat us up,” veteran Denver defensive tackle Kenny Peterson said.
All the adversity, from the noise of a tough venue to playing from behind on the road, must be an experience from which his younger teammates learn, Peterson added.
There are so many bumps in the NFL road for every team, and there’s guaranteed to be especially rough patches for any football squad with so many defensive holes. So maybe Shanahan’s real challenge will be not to let his inexperienced core of Cutler, Marshall, tackle Ryan Clady and defensive lineman Elvis Dumervil get unnerved when the going inevitably gets tougher.
Because as much as losing to the lowly Chiefs stings, know what could hurt these young Broncos even more?
Growing pains.
Mark Kiszla: 303-954-1053 or mkiszla@denverpost.com
