Brandon Marshall: I have a condo and Jay Cutler built it; 'we're great'
The Bears are not very good. At 3-4, there is plenty of time to fix things, make a playoff push, and what other cliches come to mind over the next two months. But the reality is that when you lose to the Bills and Dolphins at home, there are serious issues that need to be addressed.
Which explains why wide receiver Brandon Marshall went off on quarterback Jay Cutler in the locker room after Sunday's punchless performance against Miami.
Cutler, who threw his seventh interception of the season in the game, continues to make poor decisions at critical junctures. Marshall had enough, made that point known, and now he's ready to move on.
“Absolutely my voice was heard,” Marshall said on Showtime's Inside the NFL, via the Chicago Sun-Times. “The only thing I regret is that the door wasn't closed. I wouldn't change any of my reactions, because they came from my heart and that's how I felt and that's how I still feel.
“I think we have all the coaches we need. I think we have all the players that we need to get the job done. And 3-4 is unacceptable, but we have everything that we need to turn this ship right now.”
And Marshall's relationship with Cutler is as strong as ever.
“I have a really nice condo, and guess what: Jay Cutler built that condo. We're great. We're great," Marshall said.
“We're like brothers. …. If I have a problem with Jay Cutler, I'm gonna go to Jay Cutler. If Jay Cutler has a problem with me, he's gonna come to me. “We have that type of relationship.”
Coach Marc Trestman said Monday that he doesn't see a rift in the locker room, and general manager Phil Emery made it clear in a statement that “Jay Cutler is a winning quarterback in this league and no matter how you analyze the history of quarterbacks in the NFL, if you have a winning record you are an elite player at that position."
ESPN commentator and former Bears coach Mike Ditka thinks part of the problem is the lack of leadership.
"That's because you don't have one," Ditka told the Sun-Times said of the team's rotating captaincy policy. "If you had (a captain), he'd be the captain, and that would be it. That's all there is to it. When you see a leader, you don't have to look too much further. It is what it is. If he's the guy, then he's the guy they want to follow. I believe you should have a captain and a co-captain on offense and defense."
Earlier in the week, former Bears defensive lineman Dan Hampton also questioned the idea of rotating captains.
“If you're in a daycare, you might want to let everyone rotate being captains, because we all want to be fair,” Hampton said during an appearance on 87.7 FM. “But this is the Chicago Bears. This is the NFL. The guys that the team votes as captains should be captains every week. Not a bunch of touchy-feely, we're going to pass out juice boxes. Not, we're going to let this guy be a captain. And, next week, we're going to let that guy be a captain. That's not the way it works.”
Winning, of course, fixes a lot of this. Unfortunately, the Bears have to face the Patriots Sunday. The good news is that it won't be in Soldier Field.
