You knew it was coming. If not, you need to move into this 21st century of ours.
Anyway, they’re out there battling traffic in cyberspace: and . And trust me, there will be more. Stuff happens when you try to trade the local Pro Bowl quarterback.
Said savejaycutler originator Matthew Martinez, “Jay Cutler has heaps of potential, and the risk of losing him because (Josh) McDaniels wants to make this New England version 2.0 is unacceptable.”
OK, so it’s a fan grumbling. What McDaniels needs to realize is there are countless thousands just like Martinez. But then, from the looks of things, McDaniels needs to realize a lot of things.
He didn’t just take a new job. Overnight, he became the highest-profile person in Colorado. If it’s not him, it’s the guy he just talked about trading. Or John Elway, another Broncos quarterback who once melted down after hearing his name in trade talks.
Many people walking down the 16th Street Mall don’t know who the governor is. But they know who Elway and Cutler are, and they know who McDaniels is. That’s a whole new world from the one McDaniels left behind in New England, where Bill Belichick kept his assistants out of sight and out of mind from the media.
McDaniels may prove to be a superstar on Sunday, but nothing he did in New England could have prepared him for Monday through Saturday in Denver. No, his professional life won’t become an open book. Then again, it won’t be a closed door, either, as it was during his days with Coach Hoodie.
If you’re McDaniels, your concerns begin with Cutler, a temperamental kid who finds himself in a major funk. But those concerns shouldn’t end there. On top of everything else, the Cutler trade fiasco is bad PR.
Cutler’s volatile reaction to the talks was the latest indication that he isn’t comfortable in his own skin, isn’t at all good with the attention and scrutiny that accompany his job. That’s understandable enough. It took Elway years to get there, and he didn’t have to contend with the Broncos’ 2008 defense.
Then there’s McDaniels. Two of his predecessors, Mike Shanahan and Wade Phillips, knew the drill with Broncomania because they had been Broncos assistants. Dan Reeves, meanwhile, was on the job for 12 years. McDaniels doesn’t have the same feel for things, the same acquired ability to shrug things off that those three had.
But ready or not, he’ll have to live with it. Because unlike all those players McDaniels just cut, the scrutiny isn’t going away.
Jim Armstrong: 303-954-1269 or jmarmstrong@denverpost.com
