Simms, Fencik weigh in on the struggles of Cutler

They’re weighing in from all corners now on Jay Cutler, and we’ll hear ourselves from the Bears quarterback coming up at noon when he holds his weekly press conference at Halas Hall.

Phil Simms visited with Mully & Hanley this morning on the Score and weighed in on the quarterback and his problems as he leads the NFL with 17 interceptions through nine games, one short of the number he threw all last season in Denver when some people chalked up the statistic to playing for a team with a woeful defense.

“I’ve had this discussion with you guys and I had it with Bill Parcells over the years, and once I got done playing we’d talk about it,” Simms said. “He would go up to me [and say], `Why do you think so and so threw that pass? And I said because he thought he could get in in there. And he laughs and says. Probably the biggest problem for Jay Cutler is there’s no window that’s too small. He believes he can fit it into the tight spots and it’s gotten him in big trouble this year.”

Ex-Bears safety Gary Fencik, the franchise’s all-time leader in interceptions with 38, said that the issue is the undersized wide receivers that he’s working with.

“He has a bunch of smurfs at wide receiver and if you look at Brandon Marshall or Larry Fitzgerald or Randy Moss or even Calvin Johnson with the Lions, you know they’re 6-3, 6-5, 220 [pounds] to 230, those are big targets.”

The only problem with that is that the Washington Redskins won a Super Bowl with a group of receivers that were dubbed the Smurfs. Dan Marino went from Miami to Canton, Ohio, zipping passes to Mark Clayton and Mark Duper for the majority of his career. Both of those guys were 5-9.

No, Cutler doesn’t have a proven big target in Marshall like he did in Denver, but Greg Olsen has good size and size doesn’t make every receiver. Just ask Lovie Smith and the Bears about Carolina’s Steve Smith.