Lovie Smith: Jay Cutler is a Super Bowl-quality QB

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Monday, Sept. 6, 2010
8:21 PM

By John Mullin
CSNChicago.com

Lovie Smith has gone to two Super Bowls, one with the St. Louis Rams and the other with his 2006 Bears. And he is adamant that, criticism from outsiders notwithstanding, he has a quarterback every bit the equal of Kurt Warner and Rex Grossman, the quarterbacks that took those teams to Roman-numeral games.

“Jay Cutler can do all the things previous Super Bowl quarterbacks have done for us,” Smith said Monday night to a gathering of season ticketholders meeting in the Walter Payton Center to hear Bears President Ted Phillips, GM Jerry Angelo and Smith discuss the state of the 2010 team.

Smith also has gone to a Super Bowl with a Mike Martz offense throwing the ball. His 2006 Bears team went there with a running game built around Thomas Jones and Cedric Benson, plus a dominant defense.

“We’ve done it both ways [run-based and pass-based],” Smith said. “I know that our brand of football has gone to the Super Bowl… [and] will surprise people is how well we’ll eventually end up running the ball.”

Smith enjoys using negative opinions of his team for motivation. And this year is no exception.

“We’re under the radar a little bit right now and we like it,” Smith said. “Right now we feel this can be the strongest team we’ve had since we’ve been here.”

Smith said that Mark Anderson and Israel Idonije are still listed as co-starters at left defensive end and a decision on the Opening-Day starter won’t come officially until Sunday against the Detroit Lions.

Smith identified defensive tackle Marcus Harrison as one player in particular to watch. Harrison has “a lot of talent and good size,” Smith said. “We feel he’s one year away from becoming an elite defensive lineman.”

Leadership factor

Players and coaches voted on team captains Monday and one of the five selections was particularly gratifying for the front office.

Lovie Smith and his staff had helped in the background “investigation” of defensive end Julius Peppers. Angelo and his staff did their evaluations. And Phillips was instrumental in ownership making one of the biggest on-field financial commitments in franchise history.

"We’re always looking for the dirt [on a player],” Angelo said, “but we never really found any dirt with Julius. The ‘person’ was what we wanted to evaluate and his being elected captain says everything about his character.”

Roster adjustments

Smith mentioned guard Josh Beekman, linebacker Tim Shaw and defensive lineman Jarron Gilbert as especially difficult roster cuts. The Bears had intended to keep their normal complement of 10 defensive backs, but “this year Lovie felt that 11 would be the better number until we got up and running,” Angelo said.

Keeping the additional defensive back meant shorting the roster to five wide receivers instead of the preferred six. But Juaquin Iglesias, among the final players cut, agreed to re-sign to the practice squad “so we were fortunate and still got our six,” Angelo said.

Changes made

Critics deriding the Bears for not doing enough in the offseason got no ammunition from Bears management.

When the 2009 season ended, meetings produced a clear consensus on a course of action: “We knew we had a better team, we didn’t show it and we needed to make some changes,” Phillips said.

Phillips pointed to the changes in the coaching staff, including two former NFL head coaches in Mike Martz and Mike Tice. The front office was made over with the exits of pro personnel director Bobby DePaul and college scouting director Greg Gabriel and the addition of Tim Ruskell as director of player personnel, which Phillips pointedly said “has added a sense of trust and confidence throughout the building."

And the signings of Peppers and other free agents were a financial statement on the field.

“I think all three of those things showed that we are willing to make the changes necessary to get our team to the level we need,” Phillips said.

John "Moon" Mullin is CSNChicago.com's Bears Insider, and appears regularly on Bears Postgame Live and Chicago Tribune Live. Follow Moon on Twitter for up-to-the-minute Bears information.