Why Lovie Smith Needs to Leave the Chicago Bears Offense to Mike Martz
Published by Bob Warja on March 25, 2010
Article Source: Bleacher Report - Chicago Bears
Mike Martz knows how to run an offense. Lovie Smith does not. And while some recent comments may be much ado about nothing, they could also signal Lovie’s insecurity rearing its ugly head again.
This insecurity shows itself whenever Lovie feels the need to flex his muscles and declare “I’m in charge.” Look, Lovie, we know you’re the head coach. We also know that you hired Mike Martz to do a job.
So let him do it.
Thus far, Lovie has been spending time talking about how the offense won’t change, what they will not do.
For example, back in February, Martz had said that the Bears would be “judicious” in how they use Hester on offense.
“I think he’s still the best special teams return guy in the league, period,” Martz said. “We have to be careful about how much we ask him to do on offense.”
Now comes word from Lovie that the only reason Martz said this was that reporters were peppering Martz with questions and that there would be no change to Hester’s role in the offense for next season.
“I don’t know whose plan that was,” Smith told Chicago reporters on Tuesday. “Mike had been here a few days, you kind of hit him with questions. He likes the potential of Devin as a full-time receiver. I don’t see him [getting fewer snaps].”
Well now, I say that if Martz thinks it would be better to let Devin focus on returning to his punt and kick returning role, a role that Hester himself says he would rather focus on, then he probably knows what he’s talking about.
Maybe Martz feels his huge playbook is too complicated for Hester. More likely, he has watched the tapes and seen the games and knows that Hester isn’t a receiver.
Unfortunately, in Lovie’s secret world where all communication must be cleared by the commander-in-chief before being disseminated, this was not acceptable.
Lovie hadn’t had time to figure out a way to turn those comments into a positive and prevent them from making his talent evaluation skills look bad.
But it is a fact that Lovie’s talent evaluation skills are in question.
To everyone except the head coach, anyway.
Hopefully, this is merely a blip on the radar and not a sign of things to come.
Lovie needs to step away from the offense slowly, put down the telestrator, and surrender the duties to his former coaching mentor.
Otherwise, we might still be coming off the bus running.
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