Chicago Bears Training Camp Report Day 1
Published by Brett Solesky on August 2, 2009
Article Source: Bleacher Report - Chicago Bears
The Chicago Bears kicked off training camp 2009 today in front a large crowd of around 6,000 fans. Talk is, the large attendance at practice was a record for the Chicago Bears. Undoubtedly the large crowd came to see one player, Jay Cutler.
Cutler didn’t disappoint either, he hit Devin Hester on a long deep pass and Greg Olsen on another play down the seam. All completions that the fans want to see from the new franchise quarterback.
While in the eyes of the fans today may have been all about Jay Cutler, the real fact is today’s practice provided the first real look at new assistant head coach and newly minted defensive line coach Rod Marinelli.
During Mini-Camp and OTAs the media wasn’t allowed to be in the vicinity of the practice field where Marinelli had the players working.
Today, was a completely different story as they were allowed to be up front and in the action.
Action that was typical Marinelli fashion as he was on the D-Lineman and on them hard.
Marinelli is the prototypical great D-Line coach, he is what you want, tough as nails and every other superlative you can throw out regarding a good coach.
Why do I know this?
I’ve seen Marinelli in action first hand. Way back when he was just starting his career out at Arizona State. Marinelli was a take no prisoners, you will do as your told coach.
The likelihood that he could physically kick the butt of every D-Lineman on the roster is highly probable. That’s how tough Marinelli is.
At ASU they were famous for a similar tough as nails coach, Frank Kush. Marinelli was described as a lot like Kush, the same type of mouth, the same type of motor, and the same type of toughness. Marinelli even strutted like Kush while at ASU and it made ASU fans highly gleeful to see such a man return to Tempe.
Like most great coaches they don’t change the style that made them successful, and today we learned that Marinelli has not changed one iota in the years he’s been a coach in college or in the NFL.
He still runs with a high motor and mouth demanding violence with every rep the D-Lineman take.
He works them hard, insisting on never stopping for breaks and never loafing.
The good news here is that Marinelli will demand toughness as well as stamina in his lineman. Making sure that he wears them out in training camp so they won’t be totally gassed in the fourth quarter when the Bears need a big stop to win a game.
Marinelli is a former Marine, and it’s been said he’s a better sergeant than he is a general, pun intended. The enlisted Marine always gets the most respect, they’re typically old crust and leathery, quite the tough men.
Marinelli is likely the best thing that could have happened to this group of under performing and under motivated linemen.
We all know the Bears’ defense has been at their best when the front four performs at a high level. The likelihood we see improvement out of that front four this year with addition of Marinelli seems highly likely.
While we won’t see the true impact of Marinelli until the pads go on, you can see that there is a change in the mood in the front four, and things will be different from here on out.
Elsewhere in camp Danieal Manning had cramping issues and was held out of most of the activities today. The report is that nothing serious and he should be back on the field tomorrow for the first full pads practice of camp. In the mean time Craig Steltz was back holding down the starting free safety spot while Manning was absent.
