Mike Martz says 'blame me' after out-of-control play calling
Just like he did a year ago when the play calling got totally unbalanced for the Chicago Bears, Mike Martz said “blame me.”
The offensive coordinator took the heat Wednesday, three days after quarterback Jay Cutler was sacked six times in a 30-13 beat-down from the New Orleans Saints at the Superdome. Martz called 52 pass plays and 11 runs and Chicago never handled the heat Saints defensive coordinator Gregg Williams was dialing up. It was very similar to a home loss to the Seattle Seahawks last season when Martz called just 12 running plays.
“If you’re looking for blame, blame me,” Martz said. “It’s just one of those things that happens. I did a poor job of coaching, and we didn’t play very good. We’ve got to clean up what was wrong and what we didn’t do and move on.”
Bears coach Lovie Smith has made it clear he expects the gameplan to be more balanced Sunday when the Bears host the Green Bay Packers at Soldier Field. If Martz doesn’t get the message this time, you have to wonder how much longer he’ll stick around. No one can blame the one-sided play calling on the lopsided score. When the Bears trailed the Saints 16-13 with 10 minutes to play in the third quarter, Martz had called 29 pass plays and just 10 runs.
“I’ve been calling plays for most of my life and you go back and there’s days when you don’t do a good job obviously, and I didn’t do a good job responding and there’s some things we should have adjusted to,” Martz said. “I should have adjusted to better and didn’t do that.”
He’s got his marching orders to do it moving forward.
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Brad Biggs covers the Bears for the Chicago Tribune