It is unfair to Jeff George to compare him to Jay Cutler

Now that Jay Cutler has again put himself in a position to be criticized, all of the comparisons of him to Jeff George are again coming to the surface.


This is patently unfair.  To Jeff George.


What I saw yesterday in the NFC Championship game was sickening.  Jay Cutler tapped out with a minor knee injury like he was playing in the Pre-Season or the Pro Bowl, instead of the biggest game of his career.  


He let Todd Collins take over HIS team because he got a boo boo.  


I'm not a doctor, but if his knee was stable enough to wander the sideline without ice or treatment - then he could have played.  Talent-wise, Jay Cutler on one leg is significantly better than a 85 year old Todd Collins.


After all, Jay has been playing on half a heart for years...  what's a little knee injury?


I wonder if in some future marriage he will tap out during a bedroom encounter and call up his neighbor to finish the job for him.


Say what you want about Jeff George, the man was tough.  The punishment he took behind the terrible Colts offensive line was just ridiculous.  It would only be fair to point out that they were not all that fired up to be blocking for him, but George still stayed in there and took it.


George never wavered on the opinion that it was *he* that should be leading his team.  Sometimes that was not true - but there is merit in that attitude.


I wrote earlier in the season that Cutler and Mike Martz were a couple doomed to fail.  That Cutler would never be able to execute Martz's offense.  


With the Bears resurgence in the second half of the season, it looked to *some* that I would have to eat my words.  What no one talked about was something that was obvious to myself as well as players who had played under Martz in St. Louis: the Bears were no longer running the "Mike Martz" offense.


Martz gave up on Cutler ever being able to execute a offense based on precise timing throws and rigid decision-making.  They basically "de-tuned" the offense and just let Cutler do what he has always done: sit back in the pocket and throw it to whoever had already gotten open.  Sometimes if you can pass block well enough, this can work.  But it is anything but Martz's system.


Collins came into that game trying to run the offense correctly - that is why he looked so bad.  The receivers and the rest of the offense had in the previous weeks gotten out of running the system as designed and could not just snap it back.  Unlike Cutler, Collins is a "system QB" and could have had great success in a Martz attack in his younger days.


So where does this leave Cutler and Martz?  Cutler will be back next year and will be the starter.  Martz will be there too unless he gets another job offer.  Martz only took this job out of desperation.  He needed to get back "in play" and had no other offers on the table.  


Working with Cutler will make him wish he sat this season out - he may never get another chance to be a head coach because of Jay Cutler: Coach Killer.

Be Thankful we are not the Bears or Dolphins

Watching the Bears shut out the Dolphins last night, I was struck by how horrible that Tyler Thigpen played for the Dolphins.  Now I know he was until last week the third string QB and he was only in there because of injuries to the Chads; but he was screwing up in ways that went well beyond any sort of inexperience factor.

How about throwing the ball away?  How about following through with your throws so your passes are not high?  How about dumping the ball off short instead of fixating on a WR down the field, studying his progress while a strong rush hits you from three sides at the same time?

The thing that gets me about him is that he was the starting QB in KC two years ago.  He has a lot of experience for a 3rd stringer.

Thursday night he looked like a squirrel loose in a classroom full of 4th graders.

This was a very winnable game for the Dolphins.  Jay Cutler is still trying to become the first QB to complete a pass by having it pass through the body of a defensive back.  Fortunately for the Dolphins, none of their players were killed by an errant Jay Cutler pass - but they were so concerned with the possibility of dying on the field with a football-sized hole in their chest that they could not concentrate on actually catching the balls hurtling at them.

The Bears having Mike Martz as their offensive coordinator with the personnel they have provided him is like asking General Schwarzkopf to invade Iraq with the Blue Man Group.

Other than Matt Forte, they don't have a single skill player on offense that fit his system.  They don't have a skill player on offense that would have started for Martz in Detroit!  And that includes Cutler.

This is what I wrote in a email to Mike Lombardi in January 2010 when there were rumors that the Bears were going to hire Martz:

I don't see Martz and Cutler as a good match.  Martz's system requires mandatory throws at precise times and locations to work at all.  I think that Martz might be a bit desperate if he is interested in this job.

He does better with QBs with missing or crushed egos that are willing to completely change everything they have ever done at the QB position.

Working with Cutler will be exactly like trying to jam Jeff George into the west coast offense in Washington and in Oakland.  He imploded.

The design and structure of Martz's passing game is completely alien to what everyone else does.  It requires specific kinds of WR and a specific kind of QB. 

You will have to change your personnel to run it right - one of the reasons that Martz is out of the league.

Any single "black mark" (real or perceived) on your character can keep you from getting a job in this league.  Martz has three:

1)  The personnel issues noted above

2)  A reputation for a big ego and being unwilling to compromise

3)  A reputation for "climbing" and undermining the Head Coach and perhaps seeking his job.

Any one of these are deal breakers for a lot of head coaches (especially #3).

Martz probably is desperate and he should be.  If he gets hired in Chicago, don't be shocked if he brings in a backup QB that he had at one of his previous stops and having that guy outshine Cutler in camp.

He did not have this guy before, but I think that Jim Sorgi of the Colts would be a perfect fit for Martz.  God knows he can't run the Colts offense.

And Martz did try to bring in one of his former QBs in training camp, but nothing got done...

What a mess in Chicago.  And what a mess in Miami.