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Chicago Bears Press Conference Recap

The Chicago Bears held a press conference today with general manager Phil Emery and head coach Marc Trestman both meeting the media. Thanks to the wonderful world of Twitter, we'll bring you some of the highlights.

By Lester A. Wiltfong Jr.
Rob Foldy-USA TODAY Sports

The biggest news to come out of today's Chicago Bears presser was that both defensive end Lamarr Houston and left guard Matt Slauson will be lost for the season. For some discussion on those injuries be sure to head over here.

I gave my take on the Houston injury earlier today on Twitter (follow me @wiltfongjr); Every defensive player in the NFL celebrates after a sack, whether they are up 25 or down 25. It's in their DNA. They can't help it.

Was it dumb, yep, but celebrating sacks, touchdowns and even first downs has become commonplace in the NFL. Even when a team is getting smoked.

To Houston's credit...

It was also announced at the presser that middle linebacker Darryl Sharpton will miss the Green Bay Packers game.

Right tackle Jordan Mills was mentioned as a possible Slauson replacement. I've long thought Mills has shown guard traits, so this could be good long term news for the team. Eben Britton is also an option at guard, as is the man that filled in at tackle for Mills on Sunday, Michael Ola.

Brad Biggs is reporting that the o-line shuffle is already figured out.

Besides the injuries, the biggest news to come out if the presser was that the Bears have no plans to make any coaching changes.

Mel Tucker isn't going anywhere.

Here are a few highlights from head coach Marc Trestman.

The NFL mandates that players receive time off during bye weeks, so if you were expecting some two-a-days at Halas Hall this week, you're probably disappointed.

Wind sprints for everybody!

Phil Emery hit on a number of topics as well, including the comments from Brian Urlacher last week, which prompted Emery to do a little research.

From Adam Jahns of the Sun Times.

"It didn't bother me; everyone is entitled to their own thoughts and opinions," Emery said Monday at Halas Hall. "It did hit a research project for me. So I went back and looked at their time together.

"Together on the field and at the same time, starting the game healthy, they played 38 games together and during those games [the Bears] were 26-12. So they definitely won together.

"When Jay was off the field and Brian started, they were 1-6. And when Jay was on the field without Brian, they were 9-12.

"So the only thing that I can get from all that was that is they were really good for each other. They were both prime football players, lead in their own way and were both great for the organization."

I love it when someone brings facts to an argument.

Here's some more from Emery via the Twitterverse.

You gotta figure that a healthy Jon Bostic will be in the mix to play some Sam, as will rookie Christian Jones.

The subject of Jay Cutler came up and here are a few snippets from that via Michael C. Wright of ESPN.

"His leadership has been at a premium through all of this on a consistent basis throughout the season," Trestman said. "We have to help him more in terms of playing better complementary football, giving him more of a run game, and that goes to complementary football again. That means everybody working together to get that done. But I think there are a lot of positives here, and we're going to try and negate some of the negatives that we do see, that we want him to get better at."

Trestman hopes to address that by becoming more balanced in the second half. With a back as talented as Matt Forte, that just makes sense.

"Obviously, we're a 3-5 team, and he's a 3-5 quarterback right now," said Emery, "There's a lot of things he's got to get better at. There are a lot of things we've got to get better at. In terms of protecting the ball, in the fumbles, he had one against San Francisco [in Week 2], had one this past week and had one the previous week against Miami. Some of them are just situations, a guy coming from the blind side. But obviously, you have to keep the ball up and away. We've got to get better at that. Obviously he knows that. He holds himself accountable for it, and he'll continue to strive to get better in that area."

Wright reminds the reader that Cutler's fumble came after the Patriots already scored 31 points.

"I think there are things Jay is doing very well," Trestman said. "I think he's handling himself exceptionally well on a play-by-play basis in terms of he's calmed and relaxed, and he knows exactly what he's doing. He's functioning well play by play. There are things he hasn't done, what he's got to do better. We've talked about that on a number of occasions, and there are things we can help him with."

Cutler hasn't evaded the post game press after games and he's saying all the right things. He knows he has to play better

What are your thoughts on this "State of the Bears" address from Emery and Trestman?

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