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While Adam Gase Praises Jay Cutler, He’s Not Sure He Can Bring Out His Best

By Carlos Nazario

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While Adam Gase praises

Jay Cutler

, he is still not sure he is the man who can bring out the best of

Jay Cutler

. With just over a month before Week 1, the new offense is a work in progress, but there is still some time to get it together.

Chicago Bears
Chicago Bears /

Chicago Bears

With new coaches again and another new system, Jay Cutler can be excused for errors made early in training camp. Sometimes it may feel he is running the Mike Martz offense. Or was it the Mike Tice offense?

It is the Adam Gase offense now, but it is a work under progress.

After two weeks of training camp, it is the defense that is taking over. Gase spoke about his admiration of Cutler’s intelligence and communication skills, but when he was asked by reporters if he was the man who can bring out the best in him, he would not go there.

“Right now, time will tell,” Gase said. “If I knew what was going to happen, I’d play the lottery. Right now I don’t know.”

That is not something you want to hear from your offensive coordinator in August, when optimism should be as high as ever.

For his part, Cutler says he enjoys working with Gase so far.

“He doesn’t want to call a play and have me not know why he has called that play,” Cutler said. “So we have a lot of dialogue in making sure that, hey, we’re going to call this, this and this. This is going to happen versus this.

“So it’s good. It makes it so we’re all on the same page.”

That would be a welcomed change from last season, when the players and the coaches not only looked like they were not on the same page, they also looked like they were not even reading from the same book.

Of course, the Bears’ first round draft pick, wide receiver Kevin White, has not participated in training camp yet because of a shin injury, so the offense is not at full strength yet.

Cutler’s ability is not in question. He has an elite arm, and he is athletic enough to move around the pocket and open things up. The question with him is the mental game.

After years of bad offensive lines and questionable play calling, Cutler may feel that bad things are about to happen when they’re not. Sometimes last season it seemed like he felt defensive linemen were on top of him when in reality they weren’t.

Also, without trust in his coaches, his heart would not be in it. There were plenty of games in which I felt he quit on the team, when it could have just been his displeasure with coaches.

If Gase can work well with Cutler, and use other players such as Matt Forte, Alshon Jeffery, Eddie Royal, Martellus Bennett and White, Cutler could have his confidence back, and he could put his abilities to good use.

Trying to get Cutler out of his own head will be the key to Gase’s job. If he can do that, then this season may not be the horrible season a lot of experts expect to happen.

It won’t be an easy job for Gase, and it starts right off in Week 1, when Cutler and the Bears play against their biggest nemesis, the Green Bay Packers.

Next: Vic Fangio: Shea McClellin And Christian Jones Have Lead As Chicago Bears Inside Linebackers

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