Cutler injury, offensive struggles spotlight future at QB
In just two seasons, Phil Emery and Marc Trestman took a 10- 6 Lovie Smith- coached Bears team and turned it into one of the laughingstocks of the NFL. As punishment, Emery and Trestman were banished and Ryan Pace and John Fox were brought in to rebuild the franchise.
Considering the damage done by their predecessors and the near total barren cupboards left behind, it was always going to be, at best, a three- year job.
Nobody panicked when the new guys opened their inaugural campaign with a competitive loss to Green Bay, a whipping at home from Arizona and then an embarrassment on the road at Seattle far more disturbing than what happened to the Bears last week in Dallas.
Have you all forgotten that the Bears came home in Week Four to knock off the Oakland Raiders, a comparable group then to the Lions team that visits this Sunday, won again the following week at Kansas City and then finished 4- 7 but lost only one by more than six points the rest of the way and five of the losses were by four points or less by a team with less talent than this year’s group?
This is what rebuilding feels like, folks. Let’s take a breath, maybe have a beer or two and settle down and let these kids grow.
There is one noticeable difference, however, this year.
Last year, Pace and Fox went underground for almost six weeks in evaluation of Jay Cutler before deciding he’d be their guy.
While Cutler has always been a flashpoint here in Chicago, Jimmy Clausen was so ungodly awful in relief in Seattle that Bears fans couldn’t wait to get Cutler back for Oakland and he went on to have his best year as a Bear with Adam Gase.
This year, Gase is gone, the offense has been particularly slow out of the gate under Dowell Loggains and Brian Hoyer wasn’t bad in Dallas. He wasn’t good, but he did compete, so the ‘ blame it on Jay’ chatter started again all over town.
To any knowledgeable observer, the choice between a healthy Cutler and Hoyer is no choice at all, but things really got hinky when Fox was asked in his postmortem of the Cowboys debacle if it was a given Cutler would get his job back.
“I don’t think there are any givens, and that’s no indictment on anybody,” he said. “This is a day- to- day, week- to- week, what- have- you- done- for- me- lately league and so we’re just trying to get the best 11 guys out there, regardless of the position, to where we can play a full 60 minutes and get a victory.”
If the topic were any other Bear, the answer would have been deemed unremarkable, but because it’s Cutler ...
There was another tidbit that went somewhat unnoticed, but culled out it stirs the pot a bit more.
During the Sunday night broadcast in Dallas, Cris Collinsworth talked about Hoyer’s mop- up duty versus the Eagles, saying, “He brought a little energy to that game the other night.
“That pace carried through into practice. His quick release is going to help Chicago’s offensive line. More than anything, the Bears need a leader, and they hope it’s Brian Hoyer.”
We, the local media, aren’t allowed to watch practice, but the national TV guys get special access. Was Collinsworth just speculating, or were his lips moving and Fox’s words coming out? To blame Cutler for what appears to be Loggains’ failures to date would only hurt the team’s ability to compete now if Cutler is to be the scapegoat.
Two weeks ago, nobody was even talking about Cutler anymore, but circumstances change quickly on major construction projects and Jay long ago used up his last get- out- of- jail- free card. It would be completely foolish to suggest Hoyer is the future for the Bears at quarterback. But it could very well be we now have the first hard evidence that Fox wants to pour a new foundation at quarterback starting next March.