Forced to play solitaire
For Cutler, little else in the cards as Bears' offense continues to fold
When it comes to offensive football, the Bears have built a dynasty of fear and recrimination. Chicago isn't just the place where receivers go to die; the painful fact is that most anyone on that side of the ball is in danger of (poor) execution.
Just ask Jay Cutler, whose lonely pursuit of excellence underscores the fact that he's a singular talent -- and by that we mean, sadly, that he's on his own. Cutler doesn't appear to be getting much protection these days, much less help from the running game or any inventive play-calling to help bail him out. He looked vulnerable against Cleveland. For the first time this season, including the helicopter act earlier in the year, Cutler seemed in real danger and susceptible to physical attack.
Offensive coordinator Ron Turner, another one-man gang as the lone NFL play caller on staff, has been under a different type of attack. He's drawing plenty of criticism for failing to meet expectations with Cutler. Still, Cutler says he's happy to be with the team and is convinced the offense is close to clicking.
Cutler's arrival was supposed to drag the Bears into a new era of offensive football. He would save jobs and repair careers. Instead, it turns out there is no cushion for the crash to reality.
There seems to be a feeling around town that Turner is in trouble and could be launched at the end of the season. Bears coach Lovie Smith would be safe because he's owed more than $10 million after this season. There is no way the Bears pay off a deal like that, right?
Smith and Turner are tied together more closely than you might think. If a new offensive coordinator comes in, how much time does he get? Just one year? Who wants that job. Two years corresponding with Smith's contract? What if the Bears don't make the playoffs in that stretch?
How does Cutler get better if the Bears start swapping out offensive coordinators and moving him into new systems?
The easier process would be to show progress, make the playoffs and keep up the illusion of improvement if not actual betterment. That process starts by winning this week. The Cardinals are everyone's poster boys for hope after they emerged from a 9-7 season to make a Super Bowl run last season. The Bears were 9-7 a year ago; they just didn't make the playoffs. Otherwise they could have been the Cardinals -- at least that's the line the team likes to sell.
It seems like a false premise. How many teams are really capable of making or winning the Super Bowl this season? How many are even capable of winning their division? It's not even the halfway point of the season, but are the Bears capable of either achievement? Fact is, if they are to be a playoff team, they'll almost certainly have to get there through the wild card.
They can't fulfill even modest goals without Cutler at the helm. The priority is supposed to be developing Cutler, but perhaps a shift in thinking ought to begin with protecting him. NFL teams are blitzing with abandon these days -- it's happening all around the league, including with the Bears defense. Quarterbacks are too good to be allowed to sit back and pick apart zone coverage. You have to get to them in order to force errors and make them release the ball to have any kind of shot.
''Last year when I was in Denver, we didn't really get that much pressure,'' Cutler said when asked about the league's new trend. ''I saw a lot more cover-2. Watching some of the teams around the league, I know Peyton [Manning] used to see strictly cover-2.
''A lot of teams are willing to take their chances and not let quarterbacks beat them. Now they're going from just zoning it out to now just doing a lot of different crazy looks. We saw some stuff [against Cleveland], [defensive coordinator] Rob Ryan did some stuff that wasn't very conventional. It's not just blitzing, it's blitzing from different angles, blitzing with different people, rolling coverage up, and they've got to avoid some zones [when they do that]. It's just a matter if you have enough time to find them.''
Turner, furious beyond sanity in the postgame locker room, promised to scale back the playbook to limit errors. He had backed away from that idea by Wednesday, but the concept is sound. Behind symptoms lurks cause, and it's possible the Bears need to become even simpler in terms of what they are doing. Find a play, run it right and use it until it's stopped.
What can be done to protect Cutler from the blitz? It starts by keeping him from being a stationary target. If you sit him in the pocket and let teams attack the launch point, you are failing to use his assortment of talents. Get him on the move.
''Yeah, that's good,'' Cutler said. ''It's in the back of Ron's mind to move the pocket around to get some nakeds and some quick stuff so I'm not sitting there at five or eight yards and the defense knows exactly where to tackle me. Yeah, I think it's a great idea.''
Bears coach Lovie Smith said Cutler is more effective when he can see the whole field and move at will in either direction. But while it's true cutting off half the field limits his vision, it also zeroes in the team's focus and makes protection less complicated.
Screen plays help a lot against blitzing teams. So does running the ball in the power offense the Bears are supposed to favor.
''We've put a lot of emphasis on our screen game this year, whether it's a quick screen to the receiver that we got a couple plays out of last week or some of the slow screens, we feel good about what we're doing there,'' Turner said.
Quarterback play and offensive calls remain a mystery to the fine fans of Chicago, who have heard only stories of such things. One of these weeks, it would be nice to offer credit instead of placing blame.
Mike Mulligan and Sun-Times colleague Brian Hanley host ''The Mully and Hanley Show'' from 5 to 9 a.m. weekdays on WSCR-AM (670).