At last, Bears, Martz finally meet at Halas Hall

After more than three weeks of an offensive coordinator talent search that featured as many rejections as interviews, the Bears finally decided Friday afternoon to kick the tires on Mike Martz, whose resume includes Super Bowls and super passing attacks.

Sources have speculated that the Bears are close to making a decision, although it may not be imminent.

Martz helped further the career of Bears head coach Lovie Smith when he hired him as his defensive coordinator with the Rams in 2001. In 2003, Martz promoted Smith to assistant head coach/defensive coordinator and touted him as an ideal head coach.

Smith and Martz worked closely for three years in St. Louis and they have maintained a strong bond over the years.

So the Bears' coach opted to first bring in candidates with whom he was not as familiar. No one the Bears have considered has as impressive a record at the NFL level as the 58-year-old Martz. He is widely considered to be an offensive genius, but there may be just as many NFL types who simply consider him offensive because of his perceived arrogance.

Martz was the Rams' head coach from 2000-05, and they went to the Super Bowl after the 2003 season but lost to the Patriots. He was fired following an acrimonious 2005 campaign, when he was unable to coach for most of the season because of a heart ailment. In Martz's first four years as head coach, the Rams went 43-21 and averaged over 28 points per game relying heavily on a state-of-the-art passing game. But they fell to 8-8 in 2004 and then started out 2-3 under Martz in '05, before he was replaced by Joe Vitt.

Martz was the Rams' offensive coordinator in 1999, when "The Greatest Show on Turf," carried the team to victory in Super Bowl XXXIV after a 14-2 regular season. That offense averaged 33 points per game and featured quarterback Kurt Warner, running back Marshall Faulk and wide receivers Isaac Bruce and Torry Holt.

Earlier this month on "The Waddle and Silvy Show" on WMVP 1000-AM, Dick Vermeil, who preceded Martz as the Rams' coach, said he would be an excellent choice for the Bears, even though Martz's pass-happy attack doesn't seem to fit with Smith's desire to "get off the bus running."

"Nobody knows Mike Martz any better than Lovie Smith," Vermeil said. "They took a team to the Super Bowl. They did a wonderful job together, and the reason (Smith) is a head coach in Chicago is because Mike Martz gave him an opportunity to be a defensive coordinator, and they had tremendous success."

After leaving the Rams, Martz was the offensive coordinator for the Lions in 2006-07, under head coach Rod Marinelli who is the Bears' assistant head coach/defensive line coach. He also worked the 49ers' offensive coordinator in 2008, but his pass-first philosophy of offense clashed with head coach Mike Singletary. Martz spent the 2009 season out of coaching, but he worked as an analyst at NFL Network.

Before Martz, the Bears have brought in or considered a half-dozen other coaches to fill this role:

• Bengals quarterbacks coach Ken Zampese and Chargers assistant head coach/quarterbacks coach Rob Chudzinski both interviewed but elected to stay with their teams.

• Vikings quarterbacks coach Kevin Rogers interviewed on Thursday for the job that came open when Ron Turner was fired on Jan. 5.

• Former Ravens quarterbacks coach Hue Jackson was scheduled to interview with the Bears earlier this week but instead took the Raiders' offensive coordinator job.

• Former USC quarterbacks coach Jeremy Bates was also expected to interview, but he followed Pete Carroll and joined the Seattle Seahawks staff.

• The Bears also sought permission to interview Green Bay's quarterbacks coach Tom Clements, but the Packers denied their request.