Chicago Bears: Marinelli Promotion Means Bears Rewarded Lovie for Mediocrity

All the much-promised, drastic change at Halas Hall is complete.

It's like the Bears promised they were going in for a face lift and came home with their eyebrows trimmed and fingernails clipped.

With the naming of Rod Marinelli as defensive coordinator, the Bears only confirmed what has been suspected since the postseason press conference of the "Big Three"—the only real change will be the titles and names.

Coach Lovie Smith is still getting whatever he wants after three years of failure. In fact, he's getting more of what he wants.

“As you know, last year Lovie took over the defensive coordinator role and he’s relinquishing that role this year. So to bring in two new coordinators is quite a massive change," Bears CEO Ted Phillips had said at the postseason press conference.

Ultimately, Smith merely grabbed more power by hiring a crony as offensive coordinator in Mike Martz and elevating the crony he brought in last year to defensive coordinator.

It's not much different than if the Bears had successfully hired Perry Fewell to be defensive coordinator. He rejected that job in favor of a similar post with the New York Giants. He’s better off. Fewell would have been required to run Smith's tired old "cover-2" defensive system, the same way Marinelli will. It's the same way Smith's crony Bob Babich did for two years, after one of the only critical-thinking, innovative voices in Smith's entire coaching regime was fired—former defensive coordinator Ron Rivera.

There's no doubt the offense will take on a different look in Martz's scheme than under Ron Turner's west coast offense.

Nevertheless, Martz is Smith's former boss, and he actually is running the exact same offense that Smith hired Terry Shea to run in 2004—although he is obviously much more accomplished at it.

With Martz’s reputation for high-scoring, turnover-prone, sack-ridden offenses, look for a repeat of 2009 with quarterback Jay Cutler being harassed and throwing a lot of interceptions. Perhaps they’ll be thrown on more vertical passing routes, but they’ll be interceptions just the same.

So, ultimately, what has happened by Smith missing the playoffs for three straight years is that he's consolidated his power. He has been rewarded with more of his own cronies—a group of "yes men" who can merely provide more of the same old, same old.

Smith confirmed Friday something that has long been suspected—that he wanted to actually hire Marinelli as defensive coordinator last year.

"From the first day I became head coach of the Chicago Bears I envisioned Rod as our defensive coordinator," Smith said in a statement released by the team. "I considered him for the role last year, but wanted him to have the opportunity to work exclusively with our defensive line and become acclimated to our team.

"He will remain in our defensive line room, but will add the responsibility of the defensive calls on game day."

The full-time defensive line duties now go to Eric Washington, who served as Marinelli's assistant last year.

The Bears followed up the firing of quarterbacks coach Pep Hamilton (who had been the 49ers quarterbacks coach) by hiring Shane Day to work with Cutler. Day was also a 49ers assistant.

Those 49ers quarterbacks sure are a reflection of all that good coaching they‘ve had the last five or six years.

The 2010 Bears coaching staff is complete and, considering the nature of the changes, look for a 9-7 or 8-8 year.

They've been mediocre for three seasons and nothing much has changed.