Rod Marinelli is almost guaranteed to find another coaching position before the 2009 season starts. He’s a smart guy, an upstanding citizen and really just happened to be gullible enough to fall into Matt Millen’s web of FAIL. At least that’s what Chicago Bears fans should be telling themselves, because there’s a decent chance he ends up in the Windy City.

And even if he doesn’t, Lovie Smith and Jerry Angelo at least helped their boy out by stoking the rumor flames on people wanting “Mr. 0-16″ (not yet patented) with a recent interview.

“He’s just visiting,” Frank Bauer told the Sun-Times. “Rod has a number of opportunities and he is seeing Lovie and they’re sitting down and talking. It’s a visit.”

“I just think Rod wanted to go up and take a look and see what they’re doing,” Bauer said. “He came off a tough situation in Detroit and we’re going to take our time. He and Lovie are very good friends, they’re best friends.”

Awwwwwww. How cuddly. But seriously, there’s a good chance that if the Bears don’t ship out Bob Babich in favor of Marinelli at defensive coordinator,  he might land in Chicago as a defensive line specialist or assistant head coach (the semi-sexy nom-de-jour of gentleman who refuse to take a demotion to “coordinator” even though they just completed the first 16 game winless season in the history of the NFL).

And you know what? It would be a good fit; it’s not like Marinelli’s losing is contractible contactually (Or is that contractually contactable? Or is either one actually real?) and, as the Sun-Times notes, he was actually Lovie’s first choice to be defensive coordinator.

It’s kind of a shame too, because if he’d taken that gig and coached up the Bears’ D, he’d probably be staring at the possibility of heading to the Jets or Broncos right now, which, um, yeah, would be better than having just left the Lions.