"Having a system" vs. "adjusting to talent" is one of those debates that has no answer. If things work one or the other will be lauded. If they don't, one or the other will be blamed.

My concern is that the entire organization seems to be very confused as to what they want to be going forward. The way the coaching search was conducted made no sense unless you assume that Cutler going to be the cornerstone going forward. If that's so, then fine, even though I disagree with it. Emery will stake his career on that decision much the same way that Angelo largely staked his on the Cutler trade. You live and die with it an move on. So they look for coaches that they think will play to Cutler's strengths, and hire a coach who has worked with Cutler.

OK, I get that. But the coach you hired ran a system (to the extent he ever ran his system, as opposed to running a Walsh/Gruden system) that plays against Cutler's strengths. You do not want Jay Cutler in a pure west coast offense. You are not going to sustain repeated 10-12 play drives through short passes; his inaccuracy will slip you up somewhere. You want him taking his shots deep.

I'm sure Trestman can adjust to that, at least a bit. But coaches have systems. Playbooks aren't like Madden where you just put a bunch of plays together and run a few that work over and over. There should be a central driving rationale to them. That is very, very difficult to just change on a dime just because your talent doesn't match.

That's why stuff like "we don't have a playbook yet" and "yeah, we'll run some read option" is concerning. So what are you doing, exactly? What is this team? Is Cutler the building block or not? Is this a passing team or one that can run the option (or is the read-option just the new wildcat to numbskull NFL coaches, that think that you run once in the second quarter three or four times during the season)? What is the rationale here? And if Cutler is the cornerstone, why hasn't he been re-signed?

I'm even more worried on defense. Mel Tucker's results have been ... mixed, to say the very least. He was brought in to continue the cover-two system (which we weren't really running since circa 2006, but whatever). They clearly believe they can win this year. Then, they squabble with Urlacher over a couple million dollars (which would have no impact on the cap going forward)? And replace him with a player who duplicates Lance Briggs skill-set? OK.

This team needs to decide what it wants to be. I very much get the impression they are just muddling through from move to move like a ten-year-old playing chess. I've seen this movie before. It ends with us being really excited with James Allen.

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Fire Phil Emery

Your final assessment could be correct that they don't have a good definitive direction, but maybe they do. Tough to draw up conclusions in March. That said, I'm with you on being eager to see what they come up with.


As for the Cutler aspect, I have a feeling Emery truly is going to let Cutler play it out. Meaning he may not have a definitive long term strategy, because it is dependent upon how Cutler does in this system. Based on where the organization is as a whole, that might be the best option... As opposed to scrapping Cutler now or extending him.

IMO, I don't think Trestman and Emery believe Cutler is their guy. Much like they both talked up Urlacher, they will continue to do this with Jay until he's no longer with the team. Maybe Trestman has already found his guy coming out this year that they will use a draft pick on and he can learn this year and next year when they franchise Cutler.

Tresty is all about football. He "loves ball". Cutler is not that type of guy.

You have to muddle through when you don't have a lot of talent. Muddle muddle muddle.

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Reality is your friend, not your enemy. -- Seacrest

I'm not sure what Emery and Trestman are planning to do with Cutler, but I think you've got to hang on to him. There is not a surplus of solid QBs out there, as I'm sure Bears fans know well after suffering through the likes of Burris, Quinn, Krenzel, Hutchinson, and to a lesser extent, Grossman and Orton. They've got something in Cutler, and while imperfect, you've got to utilize him unless you find someone better. I liken this situation to a job you absolutely abhor; you may not like it, but it pays the bills for now. You only leave that job once you've got something better. You may strike gold in the draft like the Seahawks may have, but it's more likely that you end up perpetually shuffling mediocre QBs in and out of the QB spot until you find someone decent, but we've seen that story before.

I also wouldn't be down with investing a draft pick in a QB unless Cutler, for some reason, has irreparably damaged relations with the coaching staff and/or front office. For the first time in franchise history, you've got a QB who can hang with future hall of fame QBs and not embarrass himself in the process, so you've got to do everything to make it work.

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Successful calls:

Kyrie Irving will never win anything as a team's alpha: check
T.rubisky is a bust: check
Ben Simmons is a liability: check
The Fields Cult is dumb: double check

2013 CSFMB ROY

There is sort of a weird parallelism with the time that Zach or whoever asked a question about the Mike Martz offense and Lovie got his panties in a bunch and made sure everyone knew it was actually "our Chicago Bear offense."

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The Bulls haven't done anything wrong, and they're not going to do anything wrong.