Much like their open offensive coordinator position, which they finally filled with their seventh choice, the Chicago Bears couldn’t find a defensive coordinator.
So, on Friday they decided to give up and make assistant head coach/defensive line coach Rod Marinelli their defensive coordinator.
Wait a minute, you say? I know this Marinelli guy!
You sure do, because prior to joining the Bears staff last season Marinelli was head coach of the Detroit Lions from 2006-2008. You remember the 2008 Detroit Lions – those guys that went 0-16? Well, the mastermind behind all of that greatness was none other than the Bears new defensive coordinator.
Marinelli has never been a coordinator at any level of football before, which you may find curious since he was a head coach in Detroit. I will remind you, though, that Matt “Worst GM In The History of Time” Millen was the boss in Detroit when Marinelli was hired.
But I digress…
The Bears tried to hire former Buffalo Bills interim head coach Perry Fewell as their defensive coordinator, but he chose to take the same job with the New York Giants. The Bears then… sat around for a while with their thumbs in their asses.
Oh, wait, no. They tried to hire an offensive coordinator and on the seventh day try, they finally found someone willing to take the job. So they turned their full focus to defensive coordinator, a role that Bears head coach Lovie Smith held last season.
After an “exhaustive” search, the Bears came up with Marinelli, who didn’t want the job in early January when it was announced the position was open.
“I’ve talked to Rod about all of the different things I am going to do,” Smith said on Jan. 5. “Rod would like to be in his position of being an assistant head coach, and helping me with other things like that, and coaching the defensive line. That’s a full-time job.”
When I say exhaustive search, I essentially mean Smith calling Marinelli and pleading with him to take the job because no one else would, followed by Marinelli relenting.
Let’s face it. The Bears could have bumbled around and tried to interview a bunch of people for the job who didn’t want it, or they could have, with a little spin from the PR department, just given the job to someone in house who’s going to get shitcanned with Lovie next year anyway. In this scenario, at least they don’t look completely inept to the observer like they did during their offensive coordinator search.
Again, well done Chicago.
[ad#totalpackers468x60]