Jay Cutler needs to grow up a little.

Football is a business and sometimes people get traded--especially when there are sweeping changes in coaching staff, systems, and personnel. Acting as if he’s untouchable, as if the world revolves around him and his still-uneven skills, is just another sign of the kind of immaturity that is unlikely to lead to a championship ring in the near future.

Cutler told The Post he feels his relationship with McDaniels has “taken a few steps backward.”

“I don’t know if the relationship is irreconcilably broken,” Cook said. “But I know that as much as he’s meant to the organization and that ballclub, if there were attempts to trade him, then I think Jay Cutler is 100 percent right to be more than just a little bit miffed.”

Cutler is 17-20 with no playoff appearances since supplanting Jake Plummer late in the 2006 season, and he’s known for his petulant, moody personality in his dealings with teammates and the media alike.

“There’s an awful lot of smoke for there not to be a fire,” Cook said. “If they were in fact trying to trade Jay Cutler, then I think that’s a situation that’s going to cause a very serious problem for the organization.

“If they weren’t, maybe he forgives and forgets. But if they were, that’s going to be a very difficult situation to repair.”

He’s a quarterback with tremendous potential, but he really needs to understand his role in the organization--that of a highly skilled, important, and valued employee who can either be a leader of men or a petulant boy when things don’t go his way--so that he can become a more productive member. I love watching him play and I still think he has the skill to bring the Broncos to a championship some day, but more and more I find myself wondering if he’s really just a Jeff George-like figure that will be mostly forgotten when his career has ended.

NFL careers are short. Even the long tenures don’t often have more than a few close brushes with national championships (which is one of the reasons I still marvel at John Elway’s five Super Bowl starts), and if Cutler can’t find a way to start leading his team to playoffs, the truth is that the team might be better off with someone who shows less physical talent and more leadership ability.

Just sayin’.

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