Cutler still has support of Bears' Trestman

Jay Cutler's struggles over the past few weeks haven't put his status as the Chicago Bears starting quarterback in jeopardy.

Following an embarrassingly lopsided thrashing at the hands of the New England Patriots on Sunday afternoon, Bears head coach Marc Trestman is still firmly in his quarterback's corner.

"His leadership has been at a premium through all of this on a consistent basis throughout the season," Trestman told ESPN's Michael C. Wright. "We have to help him more in terms of playing better complementary football, giving him more of a run game, and that goes to complementary football again. That means everybody working together to get that done. But I think there are a lot of positives here, and we're going to try and negate some of the negatives that we do see, that we want him to get better at."

Still, the Bears are a 3-5 team, and Cutler's inability to protect the football has been a key part of their mediocrity. 

"Obviously, we're a 3-5 team, and he's a 3-5 quarterback right now," general manager Phil Emery said of Cutler's performance this season. "There's a lot of things he's got to get better at. There are a lot of things we've got to get better at. In terms of protecting the ball, in the fumbles, he had one against San Francisco (in Week 2), had one this past week and had one the previous week against Miami. Some of them are just situations, a guy coming from the blind side. But obviously, you have to keep the ball up and away. We've got to get better at that. Obviously he knows that. He holds himself accountable for it, and he'll continue to strive to get better in that area."

Cutler and the Bears will look to get their season back on track against the Green Bay Packers on Nov. 9.