New Bears coach Marc Trestman has had a ''meet-and-greet'' with Jay Cutler, has talked to Brian Urlacher and has shaken Devin Hester's hand. But he's still a long way from knowing who they really are and how they fit into the Bears' plans for 2013.
The Bears held a press conference Thursday at the Walter Payton Center to introduce Trestman's coaching staff. But after four weeks on the job, Trestman said his evaluation of the current roster is not complete and he was not ready to address the status of individual players such as Brian Urlacher and Devin Hester.
''We're not here to really get specific on personnel,'' Trestman said. ''I can tell you that I've spoken to [Hester]. He stopped by. I shook his hand. We had a chance to talk for a few minutes, but we didn't get specific on anything. Just an opportunity to get to know each other and put in concrete what his role would be if he winds up coming back.''
At least Trestman acknowledged that Hester's status for 2013 is in question even though he's under contract. There was not even that much revealed about Urlacher, who is a free agent.
''I spoke with him on the phone,'' Trestman said. ''He's in Arizona. Had probably a 30- to 40-minute doscussion. He was great. We talked generally about the team. Not specifically about his sutiation. I asked him about the team and our locker room and tried to gather as much information as I can.''
As for the offensive line, Trestman was also noncommittal.
''We're still in that evaluation process,'' Trestman said. ''We've just begun this week and as I've said, working on lokoking at our team from inside out, so in terms of the evaluation process, it's still too premature to talk in those terms.''
Trestman said he spoke briefly with Cutler, but only revealed that the new Bears coaching staff is so early in the process, that Cutler does not yet have a playbook.
''We had a meet-and-greet and he went back to Nashville,'' Trestman said. ''We're allowed to give him a playbook. We don't have one in place as of yet. It's in the process as we move through the other things that are happening.
''That's one of the things we're doing is putting our playbook together in hard copy. Because we do have the ability to send those books out. But we haven't completed them as of yet. That will be in a reasonable amount of time we'll be able to get it out to them.''
If anything, Thursday's media availability re-iterated that Trestman is a believer in the same philosophy general manager Phi Emery used to hire him--Â thorough, but with a sense of urgency. The playbook will be ready in time for the players to digest it prior to their first mini-camp in April.
''We've given ourselves a good amount of time,'' Trestman said, ''but we have a sense of urgency to get it done as soon as we can, to get it in their hands so they have a chance to preview it before they come in.''
Trestman still has one vacancy on his coaching staff --Â a wide receivers coach. But true to his philosophy -- Trestman interviewed eight and nine candidates for position coaching vacancies with the Montreal Alouettes --Â he was not going to hire someone to fill that role just to complete his staff. Trestman fired just two of the 21 assistant coaches he hired while with the Alouettes. Lovie Smith fired two of his original coordinators within his first three seasons as head coach.
''I'm hopeful that will be resolved in the very near future, but we need to get the right guy, -- the right fit for us and the right fit for him,'' Trestman said. ''This is an opportunity for us to do that. We're not going to be white-knuckled about that.''
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