In classic fashion, Mike Tice highlighted one of his strengths with a self-deprecating shot.

“I have been organized my whole life,” Tice said via e-mail, “because I am not smart.

“Details are the key. We need to detail everything out. Have a play for every situation. And have a way to get out of all bad plays.”

Those are welcome words from the Bears’ new offensive coordinator, given the number of plays that appeared doomed to fail as soon as the ball was snapped.

Coach Lovie Smith promoted Tice only three days after announcing Mike Martz wouldn’t return.

“[Tice] has been a valuable member of our staff over the past two years and has an excellent track record in the NFL,” Smith said. “He was very impressive in his job interview [Thursday] and shares the same vision I have for our offense moving forward.

“We want to be a strong running team with a big-play pass attack.”

Tice will call plays, and he’ll have an active role with the offensive line. But the Bears still plan to hire an offensive line coach as well as a quarterbacks coach who will be consulted on the passing offense.

According to a league source, the Bears are trying to hire Tennessee Titans quarterbacks coach/ passing-game coordinator Dowell Loggains to be the team’s quarterbacks coach. Loggains knows quarterback Jay Cutler from their time together at Vanderbilt. At the time, Loggains was an administrative assistant.

But Loggains is under contract with the Titans, another league source said, and he’s valued by the organization.

It would be a lateral move — with Tice calling plays — so the Titans ultimately can determine whether to hold Loggains to his contract or not.

Despite some injuries in his first season with the Titans, Matt Hasselbeck was 16th with an 82.4 passer rating.

As for offensive line coaches, one of the most respected available is Bill Callahan, the former coach of the Oakland Raiders and Nebraska Cornhuskers. Since 2008, he has been the offensive line coach of the New York Jets.

But the Bears might be inclined to hire a younger line coach they can groom.

Tice, a quarterback in high school and college who played tight end for 15 seasons in the NFL from 1981 to ’95, was the Minnesota Vikings’ coach from 2002 to ’05 but never had the title of offensive coordinator. He did call plays during his tenure as head coach.

By hiring him, Smith ensured some continuity because Tice knows the team’s offensive personnel and is philosophically grounded in two fundamentals that seemed to be low priorities for Martz — protecting the quarterback and establishing a running game.

Tice, 52, who received a contract extension in 2011 after the Bears turned down the Titans’ request for permission to talk to him about their offensive-coordinator opening, indicated his philosophy as coordinator will contrast significantly from Martz’s.

“Lovie and I share a similar mind-set of what the Bears’ offense should look and feel like,” Tice said in a statement. “There will be a toughness about us. We are going to be a powerful run team, and we’re going to be able to mix in explosive pass plays.’’
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All was quiet Saturday on the Bears' general manager search, and no interviews are scheduled for Sunday.

The team did continue to research a pool of candidates. Bears president Ted Phillips is spearheading the search, and is being assisted by director of football administration Cliff Stein and others.

The Bears are not moving with any urgency in the process, which is in direct contrast to the Raiders, who already have hired a candidate the Bears wanted to interview in Reggie McKenzie, and the Colts, who plan on having seven general manager interviews complete by the end of the day Monday.

Meanwhile, multiple sources said there is an internal movement to influence Phillips and team ownership to seriously consider personnel director Tim Ruskell for the job.

Ruskell has good relationships with head coach Lovie Smith, the assistant coaches and the scouting staff. He understands the team’s schematic philosophies and the lay of the land. Retaining him would minimize change but still give the Bears a new voice and direction.

It is believed Phillips wants to focus on external candidates before giving Ruskell consideration.

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MIAMI — The season ended with an occurrence endemic to losers, and it included some of those made-for-TV images that symbolize what this team had become: disjointed, fractured, seething in mutual contempt.

It was the sight of Santonio Holmes on the Jets’ sideline in the last two minutes of a must-have march — a star in abject surrender to self-interest and defeatism, simmering like a petulant child who had been banished from the playroom, feigning disinterest while the offense he was supposed to lead was engaged in perhaps the most important drive of the season.

But wait, wait for the punch line: The head coach, utterly oblivious to the turmoil that had engulfed his once-splendid legion, said (really, he said this) that he didn’t have a clue why his greatest playmaker suddenly had his backside stapled to the bench.

One whacky team you’ve got there, Rexy.

Interesting choice of captains, too, by the way.

It would be fairly easy to take our whacks at Holmes’ character and judgment after his contribution to this 19-17 debacle against the Miami Dolphins — or lack thereof, since this game marked the first he’s ever played without a catch.

But we would derive no pleasure from this, so imagine our relief when LaDainian Tomlinson decided to do it for everybody who cared to listen.

“Let me just say that there were guys in the huddle that were unhappy with Tone’s demeanor,” LT said after the Jets disgraced what may have been the final game of his own illustrious career.

“And when you have a group of guys who are fighting their butts off, and one guy who — for whatever reason — isn’t with ’em, you’ll have guys try to say something to him, just pretty much tell him how they feel. That’s what you got today.”

This has a demented symmetry to it: The loose cannon that Rex Ryan named an offensive captain was tossed from the huddle — shunned by his teammates, banished by offensive coordinator Brian Schottenheimer (ostensibly, without Ryan’s blessing) — and then he was defined by the most respected voice in the locker room, a guy who defines the character that should serve as the foundation for championship teams.

Raise your hand if you didn’t see this coming.
In the end, this sounded like the last will and testament for Holmes’ career in Florham Park:

“I’ll tell you what, it’s tough for guys to follow a captain that kind of behaves in that manner,” Tomlinson said.
In the end, this sounded like the last will and testament for Holmes’ career in Florham Park:

“I’ll tell you what, it’s tough for guys to follow a captain that kind of behaves in that manner,” Tomlinson said.
Captain Queeg, maybe.

Otherwise, the fellow on his way to Canton made sense. The most interesting aspects to LT’s soliloquy: In a time when the sports team tries to control the message (It’s common for public relations folks to stand by to organize access, watch the clock, and monitor content.), two Jets officials made no attempt to stop Tomlinson from speaking his piece.

First wave, second wave, third wave. Everyone needed to hear what one of the game’s most respected players had to say, and nobody dared stop him from saying it.

As for Holmes, what could he say? He was brave enough to take the podium for four minutes, and said little worth repeating other than sharing his affection for Schottenheimer: “Right now? Let’s hope for the best,” he said, when asked if he had confidence in the offensive coordinator.

He had no clue as to why he became the two-minute pariah.

“If it was my … jogging back to the huddle,” he said at one point, “referees were taking their time looking at plays, I shouldn’t have to rush myself.”

We’d like to give him a pass on this one, because sometimes even captains have some difficulty with that “play hard” clause in their contracts.

Either way, welcome to the offseason, Captain Contentious.

No, it’s not surprising that it got to this point. It was clear what the Jets thought about Holmes’ authority back in October, when he spoke of how porous the offensive line had become in that disaster against the Baltimore Ravens.

The team nominated Brandon Moore to slap Holmes around in public — even if every word Holmes spoke was true — and it was the first example of how this veneer of solidarity had shredded like cheesecloth.

Ultimately, it ended here, in the 78-degree heat, against an opponent that dinked and dunked the Jets defense to death. But defense didn’t lose this one. The offense — aside from Tomlinson and Jeremy Kerley — was generally awful; Mark Sanchez looked as though he was earnestly trying to finish last in the QB rankings.

Antonio Cromartie put it best. When asked whether his team had given enough effort, the cornerback replied, “Uhh … maybe on one side of the ball.”

In other words, one guy’s indifference reflected on the entire unit.

On an entire team.

On an entire season.
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