Primed to call an inaudible

In a sign of how difficult things have become in the Bears' world, the beleaguered team stunned a network giant Wednesday by rejecting NBC's request for prime-time access to coach Lovie Smith, quarterback Jay Cutler and general manager Jerry Angelo. The rare rejection of Bob Costas and NBC's ''Sunday Night Football'' crew that will broadcast the game against the Philadelphia Eagles forced the network to look elsewhere for insight on the Bears . NBC has turned to local newspaper reporters, including two with the Sun-Times. Smith and any requested players, including Cutler, will be made available to NBC for standard pre-production meetings Friday with announcers Al Michaels and Cris Collinsworth. Such sessions always are off-camera. But no Bears personnel will be on-camera for NBC's pregame show. The franchise's vow of silence is not unprecedented. New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady didn't submit to an interview before the Patriots' game against the Indianapolis Colts last Sunday. Other than that, an invitation to speak with Costas typically is treated as a rare opportunity to share your story with the Football public. In this instance, it would be a chance for the Bears to shape that story, but a team spokesman said the team simply needs to play and not talk about its play. The Bears are 4-5 and appear headed toward missing the postseason for a third consecutive year. Cutler did hold his regular session with the media Wednesday. Never overly talkative, he downplayed the Bears' recent struggles, though he admitted this is the toughest rut of his career. Cutler leads the NFL with 17 interceptions, one fewer than his career high last season, after throwing five last Thursday against the San Francisco 49ers. And prime time has been the wrong time for Cutler. The Bears are 0-3 at night this season, and he's 4-9 during his career. Eleven of Cutler's interceptions have come in two previous NBC Sunday night appearances and the disaster against the 49ers on an NFL Network telecast. ''That's how it's rolled so far,'' Cutler said. ''It doesn't really matter to me what time we play. A game is a game. It's just how it's gone this year.'' Cutler's production has been better at home -- only two interceptions have come at Soldier Field -- but he will be going against an Eagles defense that ranks third with 15 picks. With no running game to lean on, the pressure will be on the quarterback to step up. The Bears invested heavily in Cutler, trading two first-round draft picks, a third-round draft pick and Kyle Orton to the Denver Broncos to land him, and then sunk $20 million guaranteed in him with a contract extension that runs through 2013. They got Cutler to win big games for them, and instead they're in mid-November trying to explain why it's the same ol' Bears offense, with questions again starting with the quarterback. ''I'm going to say it hasn't worked out, and we're not where we want to be to this point,'' Smith said. ''We still have the same goals we set out like all 32 teams set out hoping to win the Super Bowl. We like our ballclub still. I think a lot of it has to do with things we just talked about. Turning the Football over -- it's not just turning the Football over, it's the turnover ratio. Once we get that cleaned up, we'll be in decent shape.'' The turnovers in the red zone have been particularly appalling. Cutler has five interceptions in the red zone and a league-high eight since Week 13 of last season. While the club has gone long and hard to explain away many of his picks, they're not offering excuses for the ones that have taken points off the scoreboard when you consider Robbie Gould is the second-most accurate kicker in NFL history. ''They know that I am aware of it,'' Cutler said. ''They know that I am going to be more critical of myself than anybody else. It's something they don't have to say a lot to me. ''We've just got to be careful with it. If we've got to take three points, we've got to take three points. Certain situations where we have to get a touchdown and we're down, we're trying to win a Football game.'' Time is running out on the Bears . ''Is it hard to believe? It happens,'' Cutler said. ''Do we still think we can bounce back and make a run for this? Absolutely. We've got a lot of good guys in that locker room and a lot of talented guys. It's obviously a huge game for us this week.'' Not so big, though, that the Bears want to talk too much going into it.