Rick Gosselin

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LAKE FOREST, Ill. – The Chicago Bears hired Mike Martz this season to fix Jay Cutler. But Martz isn't sure his new quarterback needs much fixing.

"This quarterback is a freak," said Martz, the architect of the Greatest Show on Turf in St. Louis at the turn of the century. "He's unbelievable. I like everything about him. I can't find a chink in his armor."

Cutler's employers can, though, which is why they summoned Martz to Chicago as the new offensive coordinator.

Cutler, a former first-round pick and Pro Bowler, led the NFL with 26 interceptions in his first season with the Bears and absorbed a career-worst 35 sacks. He was costing Chicago too many games with bad decisions and bad throws.

Cutler suffered a five-interception game against San Francisco, a four-interception game against Green Bay and four-sack games against Arizona and Minnesota. The Bears lost all four games on the way to a 7-9 finish. Cutler threw interceptions in 12 games and took sacks in 15 of them.

"That's not Jay's nature," said Martz, who brings his offense to Dallas to face the Cowboys on Sept. 19. "He's not an interception guy. I've never looked at last year any way, shape or form. I could care less about it.

"Just look at the personnel. I don't know how it was coached or what they asked these guys to do. The receivers were just learning how to play and weren't always where they needed to be. They had an offensive line that was kind of patched together plus a brand new quarterback.

"There were some games they got behind early, and now they have to stress. There were a lot of reasons for [the negative plays]. But that has no bearing on today. It just doesn't. None of it has any bearing on what we're doing right now. That's always been my approach. Whatever we have, here's how we're going to approach it. Now let's go."

Martz has every reason to put the past behind him. He shares the same history as Cutler.

In his last three seasons as an NFL play-caller – with Detroit in 2006-07 and San Francisco in 2008 – his quarterbacks led the NFL in sacks. Detroit quarterbacks were sacked 61 times in 2006 and 51 in 2007. San Francisco quarterbacks were sacked 55 times in 2008. Martz offenses took at least 40 sacks every season of the last decade.

Also, his Detroit offenses led the NFL in interceptions in back-to-back seasons. Even when Martz had Pro Bowl quarterbacks in St. Louis, Kurt Warner and Marc Bulger each led the NFL in interceptions. Warner threw 22 in 2001 and Bulger 22 in 2003.

Anomalies, says Martz of the rash of negative plays. None of his last six NFL teams managed a winning record.

"It's apples and oranges," he explained. "It has nothing to do with the quarterback. It has everything to do with your other personnel and the circumstances of your team.

"If you're behind from the beginning and chasing, you're trying to stay in the game. You don't have an offensive line and you're asking the quarterback to carry the burden. He's going to have to make throws you normally wouldn't ask him to make just to stay alive. A lot of those picks are deflections. He gets hit and the ball pops into the air. Those kinds of things.

"That's what we suffered through there. But in order to stay in these games and compete, we had to play wide open like that. We could have very well kept those numbers down. But we wouldn't have won any games."

Martz likes the cast he has in Chicago. This probably is the best offense Martz has been around since his days competing for Super Bowls with the Rams. It's likely the most complete team as well. Chicago's special teams annually rank in the top five and, when healthy, the defense has top-10 talent.

"If you're really good on defense, you don't have to stress your passing game as much," Martz said. "You can be selective. I've always said you like to throw the ball because you want to, not because you have to. It's that simple.

"When I was at Detroit, the cupboard was bare on defense. At San Francisco, the defense was growing but we just couldn't settle on a quarterback. This is a more complete team all the way around."

That will make Martz a better coach and, the Bears hope, Cutler a better quarterback.