Thread: Marinelli has put his stamp on Bears

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Marinelli has put his stamp on Bears

Defensive coordinator has team playing successful bend-don't-break defense

Dan Pompei
On the NFL
9:55 PM CDT, September 30, 2010


In coach Lovie Smith's initial vision for the 2010 Bears, Perry Fewell was running the defense. But Fewell decided he would rather do the same for the Giants, so he will be across the field Sunday.


Rod Marinelli will be running the Bears defense. And as good an idea that hiring Fewell may have been, this Marinelli thing is working out pretty well so far.

The Bears have held opponents to 18 points per game. Those three teams have averaged 24 points in their other games.

"Everybody ends up in the place they belong," Smith said. "I truly believe that."

It would be hard to dispute that Marinelli, who first worked with Smith as assistants on Tony Dungy's Buccaneers staff in 1996, doesn't belong with the Bears. Instead of putting a twist on Smith's scheme or bringing in new concepts, Marinelli has taken it back to its Bucs roots. What's new is old, and what's old is working as well as ever.

"They have been running that same system and have never strayed from it," Lions offensive coordinator Scott Linehan said. "Rod is just running it with as much conviction as ever. That's probably why they are playing so well. They believe in it. They have players who fit it.

"The Bears are playing great defense. They are bend, don't break. But they get 11 guys to the ball it seems every time."

What stands out the most is the amount of Cover-2 the Bears have played.

"They are playing more of it than they have in the past," an NFC scout said.

One team's quality control report shows the Bears have been in Cover-2 on 105 snaps, 77 percent of opponents' dropbacks. They played the coverage against every Packers pass Monday.

The other thing that stands out is they have blitzed only 27 times, 20 percent of opponents' passes. The Bears have more blitzes than only 12 teams.

"Coach Marinelli believes in pressuring with four," middle linebacker Brian Urlacher said. "He doesn't want to bring guys if he doesn't have to. Blitzing is fun. I like to blitz. But we haven't needed to.

"Third-and-long is not a great time to blitz. We'll play our Cover-2, we'll tackle and get off the field. We have gotten pressure when we have needed it from the front four."

The defense has been predictable to this point. Urlacher said the players pretty much know what the call from the sideline will be on every snap. But he also said some of that could change this week as the Giants like to pound the ball.

Marinelli did stress some concepts to his players after he took over in the offseason. One was that he wanted his linebackers to play downhill. The NFC scout said he noticed Urlacher, Lance Briggs and Pisa Tinoisamoa doing that to a greater degree than in the past.

"We kind of got away from that the last few years," Urlacher said. "I don't know why. We wanted to get back to being downhill linebackers. When you play laterally, too many things open up. They get cutbacks, they can make more plays."

Playing downhill has shown up in a league-leading 14 "stuffs," which Stats defines as a tackle of a rusher for negative yards or no gain. Urlacher leads the team with six.

Marinelli also has preached he wants his players in coverage to break quickly. That has resulted in nine pass breakups and four interceptions.

"The thing we worked on in the offseason is breaking down the quarterback," Urlacher said. "When he looks, go. We're trying to close windows. Make them small, don't give him time."

So in some ways, the Bears defense has become more aggressive even though it has been conservative in terms of blitzing and coverage calls.

Said Urlacher: "We're going back to the core of what we do."

dpompei@tribune.com