Cutler, Bears' offense not worried
GREEN BAY, Wis. — Quarterback Jay Cutler came away Sunday confident he won't be picking himself up off the turf in two weeks at Soldier Field the way he had to in the Bears' 10-3 regular-season-ending loss to the Green Bay Packers.
It's not that Cutler plans on the team signing an entirely new offensive line following 6 sacks allowed. Instead, he thinks they'll have a different and more effective plan for dealing with whatever opponent they face.
“This doesn't change anything,” Cutler said. “As an offense, we're still very confident in our ability to move the ball and score.
“Tonight they took some stuff away from us, but we've got to keep going.”
Cutler completed 21 of 39 for 168 yards with 2 interceptions for a passer rating of 43.5. He threw a third-quarter interception to Charlie Peprah in the end zone with the Bears looking to expand a 3-0 lead to 6-0 or 10-0, then threw another one to Nick Collins on the game's final drive.
Nevertheless, it was the sacks and pass-rush pressure that really stood out as problems heading into the playoffs.
“They kept us out of sync,” Cutler said. “We didn't change a lot from last game to this game, and I think they did a really good job of taking away some of our hots (reads), keeping us off balance with some of the hots.
“They were delaying some of their blitzes and bringing those guys. I think there was a stretch where (cornerback Charles) Woodson came about every snap toward the end of the game.”
It wasn't an approach completely unfamiliar to the Bears' offensive line.
“They did some really good stuff to us,” Cutler said. “They really had a good game bringing pressure with some of their slot blitzes.
“It's nothing we can't handle. It was some of the same stuff the Jets did.”
If there is anything from the game plan that the Bears' next opponent can use against them, Cutler expects offensive coordinator Mike Martz to have it solved during the extra week the team gets off for winning second seed in the NFC.
“Any time you can give a guy like Mike Martz an extra week, I think that's going to benefit us,” Cutler said.
The Bears hadn't played in front of a noisy opposing crowd like the 70,833 in Lambeau Field since their Nov. 18 win at Miami. In Detroit on Dec. 5 there may have been almost as many Bears fans as Lions fans, and at Minnesota on Dec. 20 the stadium was two-thirds empty and fans didn't care after the Bears took a big early lead.
In fact, the last time the Bears faced a good team on the road in a noisy stadium was the New York Giants on Oct. 3 in the 17-3 loss when Cutler got battered for 9 first-half sacks and a concussion.
“I said this before, we needed a game like this in this kind of atmosphere, because if you really look at it we haven't had a really loud playoff-atmosphere game,” center Olin Kreutz said.
“Minnesota had to change the stadium, Buffalo was in Toronto, lot of stadiums we go to are packed with Bears fans, so this game was loud, it was hard to communicate.”
The 6 sacks allowed brought Cutler's total time sacked to a league-high 52 and the Bears' total sacks allowed to a league-high 56.
“I think it's a concern every time you give a sack. That's a little bit too much pressure on our quarterback today,” coach Lovie Smith said. “A lot of reasons for that.
“Again, there's nothing negative about what happened today. The things that we need to clean up on, we have a little bit of time to do that.”