LAKE FOREST, Ill. — Here’s the ten most important things to know as the Bears prepared for the New England Patriots Wednesday at Halas Hall:

1. “Jay Cutler did not make any wrong decisions.” 

Taken out of context, that quote from Marc Trestman might literally start a second Great Chicago Fire. Obviously, Jay Cutler did make at least one wrong decision in Sunday’s loss against the Dolphins, and there were likely a few others as well.

What Trestman was talking about Wednesday was the pre-snap run-pass checks Cutler made at the line of scrimmage. As I detailed Monday, it’s Trestman’s system that led to Matt Forte only getting two first half carries, not Cutler going rogue and checking to passes on every play.

“We have some runs that are attached to throws and others that are just called runs so at halftime we said regardless of the front we’re getting, we think we can run the ball this half so that’s what we decided to do,” Trestman said. “It wasn’t as if we were handcuffing anybody or taking things out of the quarterback’s hands — that wasn’t the intent at all. To be very specific, the intent was we wanted to make sure when we called a run, we felt that we had the advantage and the advantage was to run it. And the play designs were set up that we could handle any fronts on those particular calls.”

Basically, the Dolphins out-schemed the Bears in the first half. Chances are, they knew that if they showed a run front, Cutler would check to a pass. That’s not on the quarterback — he’s just doing what the system is dictating.

“Jay didn’t make any wrong decisions,” Trestman said. “They did a good job of defending those decisions and so we made an adjustment to attack them a different way in the second half.”

2. Jared Allen believes the Bears have good leaders. It’s been a hot topic of discussion this week, and the defensive end had a pretty interesting take:

“I think we have great leaders here. Leaders don’t necessarily have to stand up at the podium and make some big speech. Matter of fact, if someone gets up every week and has to have, ‘coach is out, let’s have a,’ that’s lame honestly. What’s that gonna do? That is rah-rah. Leadership comes from the guys that show up every week, go out and work during practice, be in their playbook, they know what they are doing, go out on Sunday and they give it everything they’ve got.”

Brandon Marshall’s outburst Sunday certain falls more in the “rah-rah” category, but he’s also someone who is considered a player who does the work week-in and week-out and gives it his all on Sunday.

“There is always a fine line from someone just spouting off and acting crazy, but that sure as heck didn’t happen in our locker room,” Allen said. “That was just raw, good emotion. I respect guys like that, I respect guys who have passion for the game. Everybody handles things differently. The bottom line is that can’t linger. You have to come back and go to work. If that frustration turns into motivation, that’s great, but if it turns into shutting down, then obviously that’s a different avenue you have to try and avoid.”

3. Trestman does not think his captaincy philosophy is “unusual.” This year, he chose to pick captains each week instead of selecting them for the season or having the players vote on them.

Tuesday night, Bears cornerback Tim Jennings told 87.7 The Game: “If it was my decision, I gotta have permanent captains throughout the year. I’ve never heard of guys having different captains throughout the week.”

Naturally, Trestman has a different view.

“I don’t think this is unusual,” he said. “We’ve done it both ways, where we’ve elected five captains, which some teams do. Other teams go with weekly captains. After being around this team for 18 months, there certainly a group of guys that I would call decorated veterans that are influential guys on this team, guys that I go to, talk to. But there’s also a lot of guys, more than five guys, who are truly leaders and guys who have the respect of our team and leaders are really visibly seen in their demeanor, in the way they practice, the way they work in meetings, the way they initiate conversation with other players and we have a lot of those guys.”

Trestman added that he understands that some will disagree with him, but “nobody can disagree with the guys that I’ve pointed out to be captains on a weekly basis.”

For the record, the Packers also use rotating captains.

4. Tucker said he talked to Jared Allen about his playing time, but Allen said otherwise. The defensive end only played two snaps on the Dolphins’ 13-play touchdown drive in the third quarter and he only played 45 snaps in the game compared to Willie Young’s 55 and Lamarr Houston’s 51.

“Going forward, obviously we want him in the game,” Tucker said. “He’s been a highly productive player for us. It was an unusual series, we had a lot of short-yardage situations. We didn’t really get into third-and-long. We visited with him about it and we’re ready to move on. We’ll be fine.”

But Allen’s take was shorter and not exactly on the same page.

“We haven’t really talked about it,” he said. “It is what it is. The rotation happened that way I guess. We’ll move on to New England.”

So is the reduced playing time an aberration or will it turn into a trend?

Allen chuckled and said: “It’s probably an aberration. They haven’t told me I am on reduced playing time. We’ll take it for that.”

5. Lance Briggs and Jon Bostic practiced Wednesday. For Briggs, it was his first practice since suffering what the Bears are calling a ribs injury against the Panthers Oct. 5. Bostic practiced on a limited basis last week but was unable to play. Their status for Sunday’s game in New England is still unclear.

6. Chris Conte practiced in full. That could kill the buzz building between Brock Vereen facing his brother Shane Vereen on Sunday, but then there’s also the very real fact that Conte has only been able to finish two of the six games he has played in this season.

Conte missed his first game of the season against the Dolphins, but he was cleared to return to practice Wednesday and the Bears have maintained that he’s the starting free safety when healthy.

But if Brock Vereen does get the chance to go head-up against his brother, he said he’s looking forward to laying a hit on him:

“That’s my job — just like he would be looking to run me over or break my tackle. So we’re very excited.”

The safety added that he and Shane have broken a combined 11 Xbox controllers while playing video games together.

7. Kyle Fuller sat out practice Wednesday. The rookie cornerback has a broken hand and a hip pointer and right now it appears it’s the hip that is holding him back. His status will continue to be monitored throughout the week.

8. Martellus Bennett missed practice too, but called it “a day off.” The Bears officially listed him on the injury report with a hamstring injury, but it does not appear to be serious. Bennett said he expects to practice Thursday.

9. Brad Allen is the referee assigned to Sunday’s game between the Bears and Patriots. Allen also worked the Bears’ opener against the Bills, which was his first regular season NFL game ever. The rookie official was hired straight from ACC in the offseason.

10. Bennett ended today’s locker room session with a great walk-off:

“Most dirt roads come to an end and you hit pavement again. Hopefully we hit pavement again.”

After a pause, Bennett concluded: “I’m going to end on that one, cause that (expletive) was great.”

And with that, this column is over.

Adam Hoge covers the Bears for 87.7 The Game and TheGameChicago.com. Follow him on Twitter at @AdamHoge.