Tice named OC

Mike Tice has officially been promoted to Offensive Coordinator of the Chicago Bears.  We here at Bears Playbook are excited about this news and would like to take this opportunity to discuss some good things and bad things related to this move.

Good Thing:  Audibles are back.  As I've mentioned before on this site, it's ridiculous that Mike Martz' offense didn't allow for Jay Cutler to audible.  They didn't have in place a check-with-me system.  Nothing.  If Martz called a play and the defense was set up well to defend that play then Jay was likely going to force a throw or take a sack.  How ridiculous.

Bad Thing:  The offense will want to utilize the TE in the passing game much more.  This by itself isn't a bad thing.  The badness of it is that our best TE is now catching passes from Cam Newton.  Kellen Davis may be able to serve this role of a pass-catching TE or he may not.  Under Martz, we were never afforded an opportunity to find out.  I guess time will tell.

Good Thing:  This may be more of a "not bad" thing rather than a good thing, but promoting Tice as opposed to hiring somebody else will allow the Bears to use most of the same terminology on offense that they used under Martz.  Some of the verbiage will be simplified a bit, but we'll avoid much of the learning curve that comes with learning a new offense

Good/Bad Thing?:  The Bears will run the ball more and will attempt to employ a power running game in a league where passing is premium.  We can all agree that the Bears have had success recently when running the ball more, but is Matt Forte really the type of running back who you want running between the tackles more?  Are we going to utilize the unique skills of our quarterback?  Basically it's good that we're going to run it more, but it's a fine line between running it just enough (and well enough) and becoming overly simplistic and predictable on offense (see Turner, Ron)

Good Thing:  Tice has said he will make use of Cutler's athleticism.  This means more rollouts, plays on which Cutler has been highly successful throughout his career.  It's good to hear a coach saying that he'll take advantage of his player's strengths rather than forcing his plan on players who don't fit the scheme.

Basically, there seem to be more good things coming from this promotion than bad things.  Now let's hope that we can make a smart hire at GM (Ted Sundquist = Good Thing, Les Snead = Bad Thing).  I think we as Bears fans are due for a few more good things than bad.