At a time when it’s becoming painfully (figuratively and literally) clear that Bears quarterback Jay Cutler has yet to master the lightning-fast drop, decision, and release that helped former Rams quarterback Kurt Warner master the Mike Martz offense, NBC’s Cris Collinsworth raised a great idea in a Tuesday radio appearance ESPN Radio Chicago’s Waddle & Silvy Show.
“I would bring in Kurt Warner,” Collinsworth said, “I mean not as a player, I would bring in Kurt Warner as a guy and say Kurt here’s ten thousand dollars I need you to show up for a week and just talk to him, just tell him, explain what you would think when you had those five man routes.”
Collinsworth also pointed out that Sunday night’s sack-fest at the New Meadowlands Stadium, which left Cutler with a concussion, may have strained the relationship between Martz and his new quarterback.
“I’m sure Mike Martz is sitting there going, probably not to Jay but, ‘Why did he do that? Like we all were, ‘Why was he holding the ball? Why was he not reading it quickly?’ Because Martz had talked to us about he couldn’t believe how quickly Jay was picking up the offense and knowing when he had to get the ball out of his hands and knowing when he could work it down the field and it was just the complete opposite of that in this game and I’m sure somewhere in the back of Jay Cutlers mind he’s thinking, ‘Is Mike Martz going to get me killed?’”
The fact that the onslaught occurred in the fourth game of the Martz-Cutler relationship could mean that the Giants figured out after studying film from the first three games how to confuse Cutler long enough to get to him. And now that the Giants have provided a template for knocking Cutler out, both of the game and of consciousness, look for every team to try to do the same thing until Martz and the Bears can figure out how to stop it from happening.