The Bears fired Rod Marinelli (or maybe he quit out of devotion to Lovie) and Rod joined the Dallas Cowboys staff as defensive line coach. There were lots of different opinions on Marinelli over the years but in general our defense did well this year most things considered.
Then the Bears hired Mel Tucker to replace him. Apparently Mel Tucker is viewed as a pretty hot commodity in the NFL, and a candidate someday to be a head coach.
All the Bears’ schemes could go out the window, or stay the same. From what I’ve read Trestman is likely to focus on offense and let Tucker figure out what to do on the defensive side of the ball.
The Bears also lost Toub as special teams coach and replaced him with Joe DeCamillis, who was on special teams with Dallas and elsewhere previously. Our special teams once were the heart of the Bears, along with our defense, but have deteriorated over the years (especially with the decline of Hester as a return guy) and perhaps DeCamillis can revive them.
Now everyone is different. Over the last 2 years everyone has turned over except Ted Phillips, the accountant who is the teams’ president.
It is some grounds for optimism now that everyone is gone. If we are a mess, perhaps we can be a different sort of mess that doesn’t rely on the same old tricks. I’ll take that.
And one thing about the McCaskets – the team may have pretty much been an almost-winning but overall failure since the 1985-6 season but they did open their wallets for Peppers, Cutler, and Marshall. I have to give them credit for that.
So I am a bit optimistic. I think that the future is unknown, rather than being the “same old same old” Lovie world. I’ll take that, for now.
I think Rod just wanted to be a line coach again. He might have followed Lovie if he’d picked up a HC job, but he originally took the Bears d-coordinator job reluctantly and out of loyalty when Lovie had a hard time finding a guy.
0-16 took a lot out of him. The one thing he excelled at was building a line, so best of luck to him in Dallas. I just hope he doesn’t take Melton with him – DT is suddenly a need at Dallas with the Ratliff fiasco.
We probably won’t get a good feel on what Tucker will do until free agency starts. Seeing where Melton, Url, Izzy, and Roach land will shine some light on what kind of D he’s planning on running. He’s got some solid pieces to work with in any case so I don’t think the D will make or break the season. It’s pretty much going to be the Emery/Trestman experiment.
Like you, I’m optimistic. Next season will definitely be a break from the old.