Bears need to build the offense around Cutler

When you think about the Bears, you think about a dominant defenses and all-world running backs. Every 15-20 years, another great one comes along and reinforces the 89 year tradition. Red Grange. Bronko Nagurski. George McAfee. Gale Sayers. Walter Payton. After his rookie season, Matt Forte seemed to be poised to join the list. He may still, but now the Bears have Jay Cutler.

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Lovie Smith was hired because of his success as a defensive coordinator in St. Louis after he coached under Tony Dungy in Tampa. He made it very clear that the Bears will be a running team and they will have a dominant defense. In Smith’s tenure, the highest the Bears have ranked in total rushing yards has been 8th, when they went to the Super Bowl. Besides the 13-3 Super Bowl year, the Bears have been mediocre with the run and coincidentally are 35-35.

Let’s take a look at the teams that have dominated the last twenty years – the 49ers, Cowboys, Broncos, Packers, Patriots, Colts. All of these franchises built their teams around their franchise quarterbacks. In the past twenty years, what franchises, with franchise running backs, have made it to the Super Bowl? Can you think of any? Emmitt Smith and Terrell Davis but they had Troy Aikman and John Elway.

The Bears need to build their team around their quarterback, their franchise, their guy. Angelo and Smith finally have their guy after a lifetime of not having a franchise quarterback. It’s been twenty years since the Bears last had their great running back.

Despite the deficiencies on offense, they can move the ball up and down the field. I do believe Matt Forte is more than capable of shouldering the load and can see him as a Bear for a long time. The wide receivers have shown potential but Cutler still needs a “go-up-and-get-it” wide receiver to throw to down the field. The Bears do need to get younger on the offensive line and it will be difficult to draft top rated lineman without high draft picks but finding them can still be done. The NFL is a quarterback-driven league and the Bears finally have the franchise quarterback they’ve always wanted. It’s time the Bears put all their effort into building around Jay Cutler.

Tags: Jay Cutler