Imrem: Much Bears talk with little meaning

Many Bears fans will head off to get hearing exams Tuesday.

Their ears had no choice Monday afternoon but to shut down while listening to Bears general manager Phil Emery and head coach Marc Trestman.

Winners can talk and talk and make even the obvious sound profound. Losers can talk and talk and make even the profound sound like gibberish.

Nobody associated with the Bears can speak any other language but that this week, yet for some reason they feel compelled to keep yapping.

In the morning, Jermon Bushrod spoke his mind during his regular commitment on WSCR-AM. In the afternoon, Brandon Marshall did the same on WMVP-AM. At night, other players made media appearances that best were tuned out.

Gibberish, all of it.

The main attraction was the tag team of Emery and Trestman, who served up 45 minutes of words to commence bye week.

The Bears' record is 3-5.

Gibberish squared.

Very little was mentioned in so many words of the real problems: blocking and tackling, throwing and catching, scheming and executing, coaching and playing.

Trestman said something in his inimitable egghead manner about "continuity football."

Now, if the Bears were 5-3, Trestman could say something like that and heads would nod approval like it was lifted straight out of the Gettysburg Address.

Phil Jackson made similarly obtuse references because, like Trestman, he considered himself an intellectual more than a jock.

Jackson didn't always express himself clearly. He often was too wordy and his paragraphs tripped over his sentences. But Jackson was coaching the Bulls to six NBA titles and was considered a Zen Master rather than Professor Backwards.

Ozzie Guillen and Mike Ditka could rattle off more words in less time than a dozen late-night talk-show hosts combined.

When the White Sox won a World Series and the Bears a Super Bowl … well, Guillen and Ditka were philosophers until their teams faded and they were just guys with moving lips.

Emery and Trestman?

At 3-5?

Gibberish tongue waggers.

Take Bears quarterback Jay Cutler. (Oh, if only another NFL team would.)

No, seriously, take Jay Cutler.

Emery said of Cutler, "He still has a ways to go." Trestman added, "There are a lot of things he has to get better at."

Come on, fellas. Cutler is in his sixth season with the Bears and ninth in the NFL and his game should be sparkling clean by now.

If the Bears were 5-3 and leading the NFC North, fans and the media would accept anything Emery and Trestman blurted about Cutler as if it were gospel. But the Bears are 3-5 and tied for last place.

Every word is gibberish.

A winning record makes even contradictions seem as if the speakers know something that their audience doesn't. A losing record makes them sound, well, contradictory.

Emery said that the Bears are what their record says they are. Trestman said his staff is excellent.

So which is it? Are the Bears what their record says they are, or are the assistant coaches excellent? It can't be both, can it be?

If the Bears were 5-3, Emery and Trestman might be able to sell the polar opposites.

At 3-5?

They'd have to publish their own gibberish-to-English dictionary to make it so.

Look, Phil Emery and Marc Trestman did what they had to do by conducting a news conference Monday. If they didn't, we'd accuse them of hiding from critics.

The problem was that there's little Emery and Trestman could say to explain the Bears' 3-5 record and even less that they can do about it at this point.

Their only option was the one they embraced: gibberish.