ESPN

In addition to acknowledging his role in the Chicago Bears' 40-32 loss on Sunday to the Detroit Lions, quarterback Jay Cutler dispelled rumors that illness factored into his performance.

Cutler committed four turnovers -- three interceptions and a fumble returned for a touchdown -- as Chicago had its first loss of the season on Sunday at Ford Field, with the quarterback completing just 27 of 47 passes for 317 yards and a passer rating of 65.6.

"I felt good. I felt fine. Do I look all right?" Cutler asked Monday on ESPN 1000's "The Jay Cutler Show". "I wasn't sick. If I [were] sick, I wouldn't say anything. It didn't happen. Nothing had any impact on the way I played. I missed some throws; wish I could have three or four of them back like we talked about. But we can't. So it only counts as one game, just like the other ones."

Cutler entered the game with his average pass traveling 3 yards through the first three outings, but he threw 45 percent of his passes more than 10 yards downfield against the Lions, with the average pass traveling 12.3 yards. That, not to mention Detroit's pass rush, played a role in Cutler committing four turnovers and converting only one third down in 13 attempts.

Bears coach Marc Trestman said Cutler made good decisions, but failed to throw the ball accurately on too many occasions. By attempting longer passes, Cutler increased the level of difficulty on his throws. During the first three weeks of the season, Cutler opted for more high-percentage attempts (shorter throws) which increased his completion percentage.

Cutler acknowledged the true test for the team now is how the Bears rebound against the Saints after the difficult loss at Detroit.

"I think that's fair," Cutler said. "That's how this is: You never really are in the present in the NFL. You're either talking about what's coming up or you're talking about what just happened. You're never really living in the moment and talking about the now, and ‘What can we do now to get better?' That's what our job is as players, and that's the perspective we've got to keep. Obviously you've got to look at what's ahead of you. But after that game is over, you've looked at it, it's over with. The only thing right now that we can control is getting ready for the Saints. I think we learned a lot about our team already in the second half of that Detroit game; the way that offensively we kept fighting."

Trestman said Cutler "expressed his sense of accountability" for his performance Monday during meetings at Halas Hall.

"I'm encouraged," Trestman said. "I see him do so many things in practice, moving his feet and doing the right things. But he's got to hang onto the ball on the quick throw he had to the left backed up. He dropped the ball down. He put it in one hand. He's got to have it in two hands, and he's got to throw it away or move on. He was trying to make something happen late and he let his fundamentals go. These are things he's done better this year, and we're going to work at them. We're in Game 4 and know we've got to get better. That's what we'll attempt to do this week."

Chicago Bears quarterback Jay Cutler still hasn’t reached out to retired middle linebacker Brian Urlacher, but spoke glowingly about the former player’s contributions while wishing him the best in his new career as an NFL analyst on Fox Sports 1.

Asked Monday during “The Jay Cutler Show” on ESPN 1000 whether he’s contacted Urlacher, Cutler said, “No I have not.”

“I’m not gonna touch this,” Cutler said. “He was an unbelievable player, gonna be in the Hall of Fame; huge hole that we had to fill, a void in that defense, a void as the team leader, a void as a voice the locker room. We’re still trying to find leaders, myself included, to make up for that void. So that’s what we’re working on right now. We wish him the best of luck at Fox Sports.”

Urlacher recently revealed during an interview on “In Depth With Graham Bensinger” that Cutler was the only ex-teammate who didn’t call after the linebacker’s retirement on May 22.

"Well, I did not hear from Jay, out of all the guys I played with, but that’s just -- maybe we weren’t as close as, like you said, as we could have been," Urlacher said. "That’s just the way to let you know where you stand with people. But it’s not his job to text me, maybe that’s not his thing. That’s fine. That’s the way it is. I felt like I stood up for him more than anyone else did over the last three or four years in the media. I feel bad for the guy, he takes a lot of grief from the media, too."

Cutler initially responded to Urlacher’s comments last week during his weekly news conference at Halas Hall by saying, “No, I haven’t spoken to Brian. I did not call him. I guess I’ll reach out to him."

Chicago Bears coach Marc Trestman warned his team just before it came out to the field Sunday that the Minnesota Vikings would throw the first punch, but the most important thing would be how the club responded.

“[Trestman] warned us before the game before we came out, ‘Get ready for them to strike first,’” Bears quarterback Jay Cutler said Monday during “The Jay Cutler Show” on ESPN 1000. “[The Vikings were] coming off a tough loss the first game. We knew we were gonna get their best punch. They didn’t want to go down 0-2. He warned us. He called it. He said get ready for these guys to come out and strike first. It’s gonna depend on how we answered back, and we did.”

Vikings rookie receiver Cordarrelle Patterson took the game’s opening kickoff and returned it 105 yards for a touchdown to put the visitors ahead 7-0 after Blair Walsh’s extra-point kick just 13 seconds into the game. Chicago responded on the ensuing kickoff with a 76-yard return from Devin Hester to set up the Bears at the Minnesota 32.

Five plays later, Cutler connected with Martellus Bennett for a 1-yard touchdown.

So Trestman’s pregame words proved prophetic.

“I don’t know that it was prophetic because it was just a kick return. But they did strike first, and it was great to see how our guys responded,” Trestman said. “I think I was trying to just break the game down to what it was gonna be. They’re coming in here, they had a tough loss in Detroit, and they’re trying to find a way to strike first. You have to anticipate that. You can underestimate that sometimes. I just thought it was the thing to say at the time, that it could have happened anywhere. It could have happened with a play-action pass because our overemphasis on stopping the run. It could happen in the kicking game with some kind of aggressive play. It could happen defensively with some kind of oddball blitz that happens early that we don’t prepare for. So that’s all. It was just a sign of a team that was trying to find a possession, or trying to find something to gain an edge early.”

The Vikings did just that, but as Trestman correctly predicted, the Bears bounced back. With two consecutive come-from-behind victories to start the season, linebacker Lance Briggs said the team is creating a “clutch” identity, that “when the chips are down, some Bear is going to make a play.”

Bennett considers the team’s comebacks a microcosm of real life.

“Things never really go the way you want them to go in life; never goes as planned,” Bennett said on “The Jay Cutler Show.” “So the only thing you can do is pick yourself up and keep going. That’s kind of the approach I take with the offense. It’s never gonna go the way we planned or the way we draw it up on paper because those guys get paid millions of dollars to keep us from doing it correctly. I think we just have a bunch of guys that just never quit and keep playing.”

Jay Cutler called his best throw of Chicago’s 24-21 win over the Cincinnati Bengals the 38-yard completion down the right sideline he fired to Brandon Marshall with 11:22 left to play during what turned out to be the game-winning drive.

Out of the shotgun formation, Cutler dropped the pass between the cornerback and the safety to Marshall for the completion.

“The best throw I made, probably the one to [Marshall] down the sideline late in the game,” Cutler said Monday during the “Jay Cutler Show” on ESPN 1000. “We finally caught man [coverage]. We had been dialing up man plays, and hadn’t caught man; finally got it. It’s just gratifying whenever you can hit one.”

The play came just after a 6-yard completion to Marshall. Three snaps later, Cutler scrambled for 18 yards, before finally capping the drive with a 19-yard touchdown pass to Marshall, who was locked up in a one-on-one situation with Cincinnati safety Reggie Nelson.

Marshall finished the game with eight catches for 104 yards and was targeted a team-high 10 times. Cutler threw Alshon Jeffery’s direction eight times and to Matt Forte and Martellus Bennett six times apiece.

While there’s the perception that Cutler tends to lock on to Marshall, the quarterback said the game plan always is to spread the ball around to all of the team’s weapons.

“There’s gonna be games where we’re gonna have to ride [Marshall], where we’re gonna have to [ride] Matt. There’s gonna be games where Alshon is gonna have to step up and Martellus,” Cutler said. “Ideally to keep the defense guessing, you want to [spread] the ball to these different guys. That’s kind of the game plan that we’re going with; with different formations, putting guys in different spots, and being able to get the ball around to different areas of the field. I don’t think going into the game we thought Brandon was gonna get 10 catches [Marshall had eight]. He did. Sometimes it works out like that.”

Quarterback Jay Cutler wished his former teammate J'Marcus Webb “the best of luck” on his career Monday during the “Jay Cutler Show” on ESPN 1000.

With the Chicago Bears set to host Webb’s new team, the Minnesota Vikings, on Sunday at Soldier Field, Cutler hopes to see the former Bears offensive tackle put things together physically and mentally so he can experience some longevity over the course of his career.

“I wish him the best of luck,” Cutler said. “He’s got a lot of talent. He’s a good guy, good kid. Hopefully, he can get it figured out and stick around for a while. It would be a waste of his ability if he didn’t.”

The Bears released Webb on Aug. 30, with the Vikings claiming him off waivers to back up starters Matt Kalil and Phil Loadholt. Webb had started in 44 games over three seasons, including 32 in a row, but was often criticized for what was perceived to be a lack of effort, despite his immense physical talent.

Cutler brought some of the criticism of Webb to the forefront last September at Green Bay, when he bumped the offensive tackle in an effort to motivate him during a 23-10 loss to the Packers at Lambeau Field.

A source with knowledge of Webb’s abilities and work ethic called him “an underachiever” who is “not motivated to be great.” The source added that Webb possesses “good ability,” sufficient enough to “be a solid starter in this league,” but the former Bears offensive tackle “lacks passion.”

Bears general manager Phil Emery recently outlined some of the team’s reasoning behind parting ways with Webb.

“Really, for J’Marcus, he had played, I will say that 14 out of the 16 games last year he was sufficient or better. He had a lot of good games in that we grade sufficient, good, very good. Fourteen out of those 16, they were at least at the sufficient level, which you can win with that player and his performance on that particular day. Two of them were below that line. The obvious games were the first Green Bay game and the San Francisco game,” Emery explained. “Coming into this fall, we were very optimistic that he was going to be our starting right tackle and would continue to improve as a player. He never gained the consistency, that sufficient level of consistency that we want out of our players. So at the end, his performance wasn’t to our expectation level that we felt we needed to move forward with it.”

Kristin Cavallari, who is the fiancee of Chicago Bears quarterback Jay Cutler, said Monday she'll try to persuade their five-month-old son Camden not to play football when he gets older, although she knows that could be a difficult task.

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Bears QB Jay Cutler talks to ESPN Chicago's "Waddle & Silvy" about the feelings in the locker room when Lovie Smith was fired and why Cutler wants Devin Hester back next season.

Chicago Bears quarterback Jay Cutler made it clear he wants Devin Hester to return for the 2013 season, and he acknowledged it is "safe to say" the receiver might flourish in a new offense likely to be brought in once the team hires a new coach to replace Lovie Smith.

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The Chicago Bears will interview Houston Texans offensive coordinator Rick Dennison for their head coaching position on Friday, according to a source, and quarterback Jay Cutler said Dennison is a "great" head coaching candidate.

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Faced with potentially having to adjust to a fourth offensive coordinator going into his fifth season as a Chicago Bear, quarterback Jay Cutler said Monday that kind of inconsistency at the position is a significant challenge for an offense.

"It's hard for an offense and as a quarterback to get to where you want to be and be consistent on a weekly basis if you're changing coordinators every couple of years," Cutler said on "The Jay Cutler Show" on ESPN 1000. "That's a reality. I think it's an overlooked fact."

Under Mike Tice, the Bears rank 28th in total offense and have averaged just 14 points a game over their last seven games. Still, Cutler praised Tice, a first-time offensive coordinator who had never called plays before this season.

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Jay Cutler said Monday that neither the fans nor the media are to blame for criticizing a Chicago Bears team that has lost five of its last six games.

During "The Jay Cutler Show" on ESPN 1000, Cutler responded to remarks made by teammate Brian Urlacher, who said it was unbelievable how fans at Soldier Field on Sunday booed the Bears during their 21-13 loss to the Green Bay Packers. Urlacher, who couldn't play because of an injured hamstring, also ripped the media for calling for the ouster of head coach Lovie Smith.

"Frustration sets in," Cutler said. "You're at a point in the season when you're on a little skid. I know Brian's frustrated he can't be out there and help us, and do that. So I think everyone in that locker room is supporting Lovie and we'll see what happens.

"That's the last of our worries. We have to worry about Arizona."

As far as the fans and media, Cutler has a different take on the criticism.

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Bears quarterback Jay Cutler talks to Waddle and Silvy about his contract status.

Bears QB Jay Cutler talks to Waddle and Silvy about his neck injury and Brian Urlacher's contract status.