LAKE FOREST, Ill. – The Bears on Monday hired Mike Martz to be their offensive coordinator.

Martz, 58, worked with Bears coach Lovie Smith in St. Louis, operating an explosive Rams offense that was dubbed “The Greatest Show on Turf.” The unit featured quarterback Kurt Warner, running back Marshall Faulk, and wide receivers Isaac Bruce and Torry Holt.

As offensive coordinator under head coach Dick Vermeil in 1999, Martz helped the Rams win Super Bowl XXXIV by directing an offense that recorded the first of three straight 500-point seasons, an NFL record.

In his first year as a starter, Warner passed for 4,353 yards and 41 touchdowns.

Martz replaced Vermeil as head coach in 2000 and went on to compile a 56-36 record in five and a half seasons in that role. The four coaches who have followed Martz have combined to go 18-51 since he left.

Martz hired Smith to be his defensive coordinator in 2001. In their first year together, they helped lead the Rams to their second Super Bowl in three seasons, cruising to a 14-2 record, including 8-0 on the road.

After departing St. Louis, Martz served as offensive coordinator with the Detroit Lions in 2006-07 and the San Francisco 49ers in 2008. In his first season with the Lions, unheralded quarterback Jon Kitna passed for a career-high 4,208 yards at the age of 34.

After serving as an offensive assistant at Arizona State from 1983-91, Martz coached quarterbacks and receivers with the Rams from 1992-96. He left St. Louis to become quarterbacks coach with the Washington Redskins in 1997-98 before returning to the Rams in 1999.

With the addition of Martz, Smith now has three former NFL head coaches on his staff. The other two are defensive line coach Rod Marinelli and new offensive line coach Mike Tice.

http://www.chicagobears.com/news/NewsSt ... ry_id=6521

The Stache wrote:The Bears now have 3 previous head coaches on the staff to go along with Lovie. Rod Marinelli, Mike Martz, and Mike Tice.

MIAMI -- Former All-Pro running back Marshall Faulk offered up sound advice about Bears offensive coordinator Mike Martz.

"If you mess up, if you don't do your job, if you don't work hard, he's extremely difficult to deal with," Faulk said during Tuesday's Super Bowl media day at Sun Life Stadium. "If you decide to take a day off, you will hate Mike Martz. If you show up for work or for a meeting and you're not prepared, you will hate him. It's that simple."

Faulk, who spent seven seasons with Martz in St. Louis, disputes the theory that Martz's offensive system may prove too difficult to learn for some players.

"It's not about the offense, it's about the quarterback," Faulk said. "If the quarterback can call it and learn it, everybody else can call it and learn it, because the quarterback has more on his plate than anybody else. Everything is based on the quarterback. They're going to run what Cutler can handle."

"The learning curve is based on Cutler, and what his abilities are. I mean, he's a Vanderbilt guy, he should be able to digest it in a week."

Historically, Martz has placed a lower priority on running the ball and involving the tight end in the passing the game, but Faulk expects both to be non-issues in Chicago, and even predicted Matt Forte will embrace the new opportunity.

"He'll love it, if he can just understand and come to grips with the fact that a screen pass or a check down is just like getting a handoff and breaking the line of scrimmage,” Faulk said. “If you can fix that in your head, and not expect to get 30 carries a game, then you can play and play well in Mike's offense."

"[Also], this will be the best tight end he's ever had," Faulk said. "[Greg] Olsen will be the best tight end he's ever had.”

After a meeting in a Vanderbilt classroom and having dinner together later that night, Chicago Bears quarterback Jay Cutler said he enjoyed his time with new offensive coordinator Mike Martz and looks forward to working with him.

"I felt very comfortable with him," Cutler said on Chicagobears.com, the team's official Web site. "The results of his offense speak for themselves. He had a lot of success in St. Louis and his offenses made improvements each year in Detroit and San Francisco. I haven't run his system, but I am familiar with it. I'm anxious to start digesting the playbook and getting back on the field."

Martz met with Cutler in Nashville on Saturday after interviewing with the Bears on Friday at Halas Hall. He was hired as the offensive coordinator on Monday.

Mike Ditka applauded the Chicago Bears' hire of Mike Martz as offensive coordinator, but Ditka said the Bears' work is far from over.

"I don't think there's probably too many better offensive minds than Mike," the former Bears coach said on "Mike & Mike" on ESPN 1000. "I think he'll do a great job.

"I think the main thing you have to understand, when you bring an architect in, do you have the pieces to build the building? It's fine to have the design and the mind and say, 'Here's what we're going to do.' And that's essential, you have to have that, but then you have to have the receivers to go with the quarterback. And I have to have a left tackle to protect the backside of this guy. You have to have all the pieces in place, but yeah, I love what they're doing. I'd like to see them become an offense that can go out and score points."

Ditka didn't foresee any problems in the relationship between Martz and Lovie Smith, who used to be Martz's defensive coordinator with the St. Louis Rams. The roles are reversed as Smith is now the boss. Former Rams receiver Ricky Proehl told "The Waddle & Silvy Show" on ESPN 1000 that Martz will need to check his ego.

"That should never be a problem," said Ditka, who's an ESPN NFL analyst. "I think Mike wants this job, he wants to be the coordinator, I don't think it will be a problem at all.

"I think Lovie knows this is their best chance to expand that offense, and that's the way they're going to go."

And Ditka doesn't expect any problems between Martz and quarterback Jay Cutler. Martz was critical of Cutler's comportment after his four-interception performance in a season-opening loss in Green Bay, and Martz flew to Nashville, Tenn., on Saturday -- before he was hired -- to meet the quarterback.

"There should be no problem working with the quarterback either, because hey gang, the player is the player and the coach is the coach," Ditka said. "And if that ever changes, you got a lot of problems."

If Mike Martz and Jay Cutler were to have a successful relationship, there had to be a connection when the two met just over a week ago in Nashville. The Chicago Bears and Martz, interviewing for their offensive coordinator position, wanted to make sure the candidate and quarterback could work together.

That connection didn't take long to establish, according to Martz, who officially got the job two days after that first meeting.

"It's such a big thing to have a coordinator and a quarterback on the same page, obviously," Martz said Monday on "Carmen, Jurko & Harry" on ESPN 1000. "If there is any kind of ill will or ill feeling or just philosophically not on the same page, I don't care who it is, it's not going to work.

"As talented as he is, it's important that he understands what whoever is going to run the offense is about, and of course I have got to have a good feeling about him. We had a good get-acquainted meeting. We hit it off immediately. I think there's a real strong connection, at least I felt that way.

"Intellectually, he is just off the charts. His talent can never be overstated. He is really anxious. He's all about winning and doing things the right way."

Cutler, who led the NFL with 26 interceptions in his first season with the Bears, will learn his third offense in three seasons. His new system is known for its gaudy quarterback numbers, but Martz says his offense is all about doing what needs to be done to win.

"We're just going to win," Martz said. "Who cares whether you throw it or run it? Whatever it takes, the goal is to win the game. If you've got to run it 40 times to win, that's what you do."

Martz's name emerged early in the search to replace Ron Turner, who was fired as offensive coordinator on Jan. 6. He watched for nearly four weeks as the Bears were linked to many candidates, all lesser known and without the credentials of Martz, who won a Super Bowl as the St. Louis Rams offensive coordinator and advanced to another as the Rams head coach.

Martz, who worked this past season as an analyst for NFL Network, insisted the prolonged period was just part of the process, and he had no problems waiting for a decision by Smith, who was his defensive coordinator with the Rams.

"There's a process that Lovie told me about from the beginning," Martz said. "It was going to take some time. I expected that it was going to take some time to bring everyone through and talk to everybody. I was doing the TV stuff, and I was doing fine out there. I knew it would take its course over time."

It worked out for Martz, and he's happy to be working with a man he respects as much as Smith.

"He's the best there is, and you just can't get by that," Martz said. "He is what the National Football League needs. As a man, he's beyond reproach, character-wise, and he's one of the best football coaches I've been around. They can talk all they want about the Tampa 2 [defense] and who came up with it, but I promise you, he's the one who invented it and how you play the linebackers. He would never tell you that. It wasn't [Tampa Bay Buccaneers defensive coordinator] Monte [Kiffin], it was Lovie Smith. And I'm telling you there isn't a better football coach I know."