Q. You have coached Drew Brees, Jeff Garcia and Jon Kitna during your 16-year career on the college level and with the San Francisco 49ers. How will you and Shoop coordinate what you want done on the playing field?
A. Obviously for John, who has been the quarterbacks coach here, as well [as offensive coordinator] for the past four or five years, it is going to be difficult for him to give up that position. He has been real good as far as giving me some freedom with the quarterbacks. I think I have been a good sounding board for him.
Q. Will you be situated down on the field during game days?
A. We really haven’t discussed that yet. We will kind of see how the line of communication with the quarterbacks is going to be.
Q. The four Bears quarterbacks–Kordell Stewart, Chris Chandler, Cory Sauter and Rex Grossman–have such disparate skills. How will that affect play-calling and offensive schemes?
A. Rather than change the entire offense for Kordell, we said: “Let’s stay with the base offense and add a wrinkle or two here to kind of showcase Kordell’s skills.” There is a little bit of new learning for everybody else, for Chandler and Sauter and the rest of the offense. And Grossman kind of fits into the previous system.
Q. How will the Bears be able to exploit Stewart’s running?
A. We are going to add some different plays to showcase his running ability. We are going to move the pocket for him in the passing game, get him on the perimeter a little bit where he has an option to run or pass. Yet the base offense for the other guys can stay the same. You go into the season with Kordell as your starting quarterback. But if you ever had to go to an experienced quarterback like Chandler, he can create some problems.
Q. What was your assessment of what went right and what went wrong for Stewart with the Steelers?
A. I think that what had more to do with his success and lack of success was playing for a number of different offensive coordinators and quarterback coaches. We just want to get him in a comfort zone. Maybe he was given too much [with the Steelers]. We will be smart with what we are doing with him, not overloading him with the offense.
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