Do you believe anything Martz says?

Mike Martz is known for a lot of things; throwing the ball, berating his backup QB, having an ego and for exaggerating a bit. From his proclamation that Bears could be ready for the Hall of Fame Game in two days this summer, to saying Roy Williams will catch 70-80 passes this year, the man tends to get ahead of himself. Is that a bad thing? I really don't know. It certainly builds up the confidence of the players he talks about but as a fan it is sometimes annoying to hear the "glass half full" guy all the time.

Now, where am I going with this? Well I thought Martz's comment this week that Hanie is "a starter in this league" was a bit premature. Why? Because Martz himself has a track record of not believing in poor Hanie. Last year he publicly asked for a veteran back up. This was after he already got a rookie QB to groom in the 6th round. Then, after he got his wish last year, he again received a late-round QB prospect and proceeded to demote Hanie, albeit briefly, for the rookie over the summer.

Now Martz has next to no choice but to turn to Hanie because, and I think most will agree, that rookie sensation Nathan Enderle hasn't looked anything like an NFL caliber QB yet.

So why do we put any stock in most anything that Martz says? Actually I guess we don't. Everyone scoffed when he said REW would get 80 receptions.

We don't know if Hanie is starting caliber QB in this league or any other (I assume he could cut it in the CFL, but I don't know for sure). I take everything Martz says with a grain of salt, or at least to try and scale it back a bit.

I believe Hanie can do well for the Bears and maybe even win some games. I am not sold on him as a starter, and frankly I am not sold that he can beat the Raiders this weekend.

The Raiders are banged up this weekend, sure, but so are the Bears. It's going to be hard for Hanie to have good chemistry with his receivers after one week of practice with them.

I think Hanie will get the Bears where they need to go, but I don't think it starts this weekend in Oakland.