IRVING, Texas - A line of six TV cameras already was in place and reporters had been camped out for a good 15 minutes near Tony Romo's locker when the Dallas Cowboys quarterback emerged Wednesday, prompting a flurry of activity.

Romo was ready to talk. But first, he had to do some housecleaning.

A large plastic container filled to the brim with fan mail was blocking his path.

Romo smiled and tried to pass it off to one of the now-assembled mob, but without a taker, he put down the container and went about the job of being an attention magnet.

If only shedding the weight of expectations were so easy.

His team's past at the position sets the bar at legendary. The Dallas sports scene, in fact, is defined by its quarterback. And that's a tremendous burden for someone thrown into the midst of a playoff race last season while playing in the NFL for the first time.

Sound familiar?

Romo and Jay Cutler, his Broncos counterpart, are two QBs in a pod.

Roger Staubach. Troy Aikman. John Elway. Hall of Famers all.

That's how it's done - now get out there and play, kid.

The big difference, aside from their draft status - Cutler was a No. 1 pick, Romo undrafted - is that while Cutler was a rookie with only 11 games of clipboard work on his pro résumé when he was thrown into the fray in December, Romo had three years to wait, watch, learn and assimilate before becoming a first- time starter at age 26.

Rude awakening

With all that prep time, there was no way Romo couldn't know what he was getting into by the time he replaced Drew Bledsoe for the final 11 games last season. Or not.

"I don't think that's true," Romo countered this week as he took a break from the Cowboys' joint workouts with the Broncos, in preparation for their preseason clash tonight at Texas Stadium. "I don't think you can really prepare for that until it actually happens. I don't care if I would have played as a backup for eight years. It's completely different.

"It's a whole different level of scrutiny in some ways. But I think you either have the temperament and mental approach to handle something like that from Day One or you really don't. And I think you find out a lot of times with the guys that make it, a lot of it is more mental than what people think."

Romo's ascension didn't just splash across the sports page; it also reached the tabloids. He was linked to singer/actress Jessica Simpson. He reportedly dated country chart topper Carrie Underwood. He even served as a celebrity judge for the Miss Universe pageant.

Oh, and he made the Pro Bowl.

But his first season as Dallas' centerpiece player could be broken into two parts:

• A 10-touchdown, two-interception performance in leading the Cowboys to a 4-1 record in his first five starts, when Romo-mania reached full throttle.

• A 2-3 mark thereafter, with a six-to-eight TD-to-interception ratio.

Yet, Romo's star didn't really turn until a fumbled snap of a potential winning field goal in a wild-card playoff loss to Seattle ended Dallas' season.

Hear the one about Tony Romo's new job? He's going to drop the ball on New Year's Eve.

But it wasn't all laughs dealing with the resulting playoff fallout.

"They don't play out here in Dallas. They're serious," Cowboys safety Roy Williams said. "The whole mishap in Seattle, people rode Tony kind of hard, but as a team, we collectively had his back and people got off him. But if we didn't support him, the town probably would have found out where he lived and torched his house or something.

"I'd just tell (Cutler) to get ready for that, because he's walking into a hornet's nest. Everything's cool right now. But once you do something bad, understand that they're going to be against you and things could get ugly."

Stakes are rising

So far, Cutler has avoided such a situation.

The Broncos offense was struggling last season when he made his debut, and in some ways he provided a boost. He threw nine touchdowns on only 137 passes, the second-highest rookie TD percentage (behind Dan Marino) since the 1970 merger, and he tossed only five interceptions. But the move away from Jake Plummer failed to lift Denver into the postseason, as Cutler went only 2-3 in his five starts. He was at the helm in the regular-season finale the Broncos needed to win against the San Francisco 49ers but lost, and they were hurt by a Cutler interception that was returned for a touchdown.

"I got kind of lucky last year, because I kind of had that honeymoon period where I really couldn't do anything wrong. And if I did do something wrong, it was a rookie mistake," Cutler said. "This year, people are obviously expecting great things and expecting me to go out there and not make mistakes."

But such errors, and the accompanying scrutiny, are coming - and Cutler knows it.

There are going to be parts of the season, he said, where things go awry "and the fingers are going to be pointed at me," just as they were at Romo. "Highs and lows are part of the job."

So is the accompanying celebrity, which might be just as difficult to navigate.

"Once you're the starting quarterback in either Dallas or Denver," Cutler said, "your life's not the same at all, on the field or off the field."

When Cutler is not playing, he said, he's aware of how what he's doing will be perceived, adding that comments he has heard about fame and fortune not changing people are off the mark, because the public will be watching.

"In public, you've just got to be careful," he said. "You can't let it change your life. But you just can't run around and do some of the things you may have done before you were put in that role. . . . It just takes a couple people seeing you do something stupid, and it's all over."

Different approaches

Romo, hardly a party animal, seemed to embrace life in the fast lane before becoming more guarded after his alleged dallian- ces reached the pages of People magazine and the blogosphere.

Cowboys tight end Jason Witten, Romo's road roommate, observed that after his friend sat idly by for nearly four years without meriting much attention, "he was probably a little excited" about the prospect of finally leading "America's Team." The frenzy that then accompanied Romo's every move was probably "brought . . . unto himself a little bit," Witten said, by how the gregarious Romo handled the spotlight so openly.

Cutler put up a wall, publicly, almost from the start.

He has answered questions, conducted interviews. But there was a sense last season he'd rather be doing anything but being anointed the face of the franchise.

"He was just worrying about getting the snap and getting the first down when we first threw him into the fire," said Mike -Heimerdinger, the Broncos' assistant head coach/offense.

But it's also clear the goal of Cutler's low-key personality is to avoid unwanted attention.

"He's not a guy that's going to go out in the public eye and want to attract attention," said tight end Tony Scheffler, one of Cutler's best friends. "I don't see him dating Carrie Underwood."

Cutler has sought counsel from Elway about how to handle being pulled in many directions. Broncos coach Mike Shanahan also has offered advice.

And the quarterback has surrounded himself with a support system to help deal with the ancillary issues that go with being in such high demand.

So there are plenty of helping hands. But that weight never goes away.

Dallas' Brad Johnson, a 16- year NFL veteran now with his fourth team, noted that trying to please everyone is a war every quarterback experiences but something to which they can't fall prey. The adulation. The scrutiny. The tough times.

It has been his mind-set to stay in "keep-to-yourself mode and kind of let the wins and career kind of take care of itself."

But Johnson admitted playing for the Cowboys and Broncos presents unique challenges.

"It doesn't bother me. I'm comfortable with it now," Cutler said. "It's just not a thing where I'm going to go put myself in the spotlight or do all kinds of interviews and be all over the map with marketing. It just doesn't appeal to me.

"It's not that I'm not comfortable being the guy in Denver. I'm more than comfortable with it. I'm comfortable in the locker room. I think my teammates are comfortable. It's the other aspect of it. I'm going to do what's expected of me for the Broncos, and that's pretty much it."

By extension, Cutler seems to imply he won't be seen with any Hollywood starlets or country singers any time soon.

"I can't guarantee anything," the 24-year-old said, flashing a wide, bashful grin. "But you probably won't see me in L.A. very much."

He said it

"I rooted for him in all the Super Bowls. You couldn't help but root for a guy who was so good at what he did but just couldn't get over the top as far as Super Bowl-wise."

Cowboys quarterback Tony Romo, who grew up in Packers country, on being a fan of John Elway.

rasizerl@RockyMountainNews.com

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