If Bears offensive coordinator Mike Martz wants to put pressure on the front office to get him a better receiving corps, one way to do that would be to create a public perception that the Bears simply don’t have the personnel to run the Martz offense.
So when we see quotes along those lines from Marshall Faulk, who played for Martz in St. Louis, we can’t help but wonder if Faulk is doing Martz’s bidding.
Faulk told the Chicago Tribune that when he looks at the Bears’ roster, he doesn’t see a single player who plays the wide receiver position the right way.
“I see no pure wideout,” Faulk said. “When we ran Martz’ offense in St. Louis we had three or four pure wideouts.”
Faulk was particularly critical of Johnny Knox, the Bears’ No. 1 receiver.
“In this offense if you run a slant and a defender is coming down on you then you have to cross his face,” Faulk said. “But every time I see Johnny Knox run a slant he goes behind the defender and you see an interception go the other way and everyone looks at Jay Cutler and says, ‘How did he throw that pass?’ That is going to be a mistake no matter who the quarterback is. . . . If you are still teaching that stuff to your wide receivers then in this offense you can’t blame the QB.”
So Faulk votes for blaming the Bears’ receivers instead. And we have a feeling that before saying that publicly, he talked to Martz about it privately.