So how’s this for your Bears offseason coaching search?

They hire Option Z in Mike Martz for their offensive coordinator. And after not landing Choice A in Perry Fewell for the defensive coordinator position, the Bears instead promoted Rod Marinelli today from his defensive line coaching role today, according to the Trib.

If nothing else, Marinelli is rather familiar with the Bears’ 4-3 defense. So that’s a plus.

They also named a few other bros as coaches for some lesser roles, putting the coaching search to an end. Hooray.

The Bears have finally found their defensive coordinator, guys! They’re most def. gonna return to the defense of old now! So, um, what’s his name? Um, it’s ehhh … Lovie Smith. Har?

Yeah, it’s Lovie Smith. See, what they’ve basically decided is that Bob Babich will still have the title of defensive coordinator and he will likely get paid as such too, but he won’t be making the play calls. That’s Lovie’s job now. Babich is being put in charge of the linebackers, while former Detroit head coach Rod Marinelli has come in to coach the defensive line.

This is sort of like when Charlie Weis decides the week of a game he and his Super Bowl rings are going to take over the offensive play calling duties. I kid.

David Haugh likes this move:

In putting defensive play-calling back on the table for himself, Smith did what good leaders do. He played to his staff’s strengths while removing any doubt or ambiguity as to whom should be held accountable if the defense fails.

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Every coach in the NFL has an expertise, and calling defenses is Smith’s. It’s not his game-day acumen as a head coach. It’s not his ability to communicate with players or media. It’s not even his level-headed approach to adversity as much as it is his knack for knowing how to create takeaways and stop offenses.

He’s right; this is sort of Lovie’s bag. But here’s the kicker: if the defense underwhelms again? Lovie won’t have Babich to blame. He’ll have himself.

As we all know, the Lions had a bad year. As in, record wise, the worst year in NFL. Ever. This is not hyperbole-laden. This is fact. But, by and large, Rod Marinelli still has high favor around the league for his coaching ability. You probably could have put a combination of Vince Lombardi, Phil Jackson, Joe Newton and Bob Knight at the helm of Detroit this year, and they still wouldn’t have produced a winner. The personnel, it just wasn’t there.

We all know Lovie Smith and Jerry Angelo have been courting Rod Marinelli for a potential coaching vacancy on the Bears’ staff, as he’s recently visited Halas Hall. But apparently he’s not the only discarded Lions’ staffer that dreams of being with the Bears. Joe Barry, Marinelli’s son-in-law and former Detroit defensive coordinator, is looking to perchance hook on with the Bears, too.

“If I had an opportunity to work for Lovie Smith, I would cherish it,” said Barry, who was fired as Detroit’s defensive coordinator when Marinelli was dismissed as the Lions head coach.

“I have a relationship with coach Smith. I have a relationship with [general manager] Jerry Angelo. So if that was an opportunity, it would be something I definitely would be interested in.”

The opportunity might have presented itself Tuesday. The Bears fired linebackers coach Lloyd Lee after one season, the second defensive assistant to be cut from the staff. Defensive backs coach Steven Wilks was let loose last week. Defensive line coach Brick Haley is set to take the same position at LSU.

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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.”

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It’s amazing to me that certain teams wait until today — the official end of the NFL regular season — to start firing coaches. What good reason was there to let Romeo Crennel hang around in Cleveland? Or Rod Marinelli in Detroit? Sure, Mike Singletary — after leading the 49ers to respectability only a few short weeks after dropping his drawers in front of the team — proves the exception to the rule, but for the most part it seems odd to let coaches hang around.

Of course, all of that is for naught now that Marinelli, Crennel and Eric Mangini of the Jets have been canned. Briefly, why:

• Marinelli — The Lions went 0-16, which is, um, not “good.” He might not have completely deserved to get fired (the totality of blame lies on Matt Millen) but a full house cleaning is what’s best for a franchise in this kind of despair. See: Dolphins, Miami or Falcons, Atlanta.
• Crennel — The Browns became the Seattle Mariners of the NFL, falling back to Urf in the most speedy of fashions. Crennel stuck with Derek Anderson too long, Braylon Edwards can’t catch the ball, but mostly, he’s a very, very bad game manager. That’s not a trait you want in your head coach.
• Mangini — An inexplicable love for Brett Favre by Woody Johnson. Sure, he’s a grizzled, Wrangler-ensconced gunslinger. We get that.  And sure, Mangini spent the last month coaching with two hands around his neck, but it’s just ridiculous to fire him while taking Favre’s side.

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Eamonn covered the Rod Marinelli-Rob Parker spat quite well this morning, so this post serves less to opine, and more to inform: Rod Marinelli has spoken about the Rob Parker question. And Rod Marinelli does not like when you involve his family in a question. Not one bit:

“Anytime you attack my daughter, I’ve got a problem with that. In a room of stink … and as a man and it was premeditated. I think there was something wrong with that, yeah.”

When asked if Parker had crossed the line, Marinelli said, “Big time.”

Marinelli refused to address two questions about what he meant by “room of stink.”

“I’ll leave it at that,” he said, adding that he had not talked to Parker and had no desire to do so.

On why he didn’t immediately respond to Parker’s question, Marinelli said: “I just don’t think that’s the right stage for that. To me, it’s not. It’s the wrong stage for the game of football and for me to even react to something like that, on a stage about football — it’s a kid’s game, it’s for the kids. It’s wrong.”

For what it’s worth, Parker went on “First Take” today and again apologized. Also, let’s remember: He did say “on a lighter note” before the question was asked. (Though, I could say that before a lot of things, and I’d still come off like an idiot.) So, somewhere in my heart, I’d like to give a small sliver of benefit to Parker, because though his question was horribly timed and not funny, he seems to realize his question was horribly timed and not funny. Or he’s at least pretending like he realizes that.

Ah, life on the Detroit Lions beat, almost as fun as life on the Knicks beat last year.

Via Pro Football Talk.

By now, this is close to old news, but it’s worth a watch anyway: Detroit News columnist Rob Parker, in what he called “an attempt at humor,” asked this of Rod Marinelli yesterday (video of which you can see at Deadspin):

During Sunday’s postgame news conference — the Lions lost game No. 15, this one a 42-7 loss to the Saints — I attempted to lighten the moment in a tense situation and asked Marinelli if he wished his daughter had married a better defensive coordinator.

Oh, slam! See, Joe Barry, the Detroit Lions defensive coordinator, is married to Rod Marinelli’s daughter.  See what he was going for there? A little humor, a little dose of levity in an 0-15 season, because if there’s one thing I know about overserious football coaches, it’s that they love to joke around after they’ve lost their 15th game in a row.

Of course, Terry Bradshaw and the Fox crew were livid at Parker. Rick Chandler is seeing a deeper motive to Parker’s jab; that he is angling for a new job as a controversial talk-jock on ESPN, that he was actually being career-savvy and attention-minded when he inquired as to Marinelli’s paterfamilia. Maybe so.

In either case, the one rule here, any time someone says something borderline “insensitive” is this: Was that actually funny? The Atlantic political blogger Ta-Nehisi Coates calls the rule: “Motherf–ker, be funny.” Rob Parker was not that, and so people are mad at him. Had he cracked up Marinelli and the whole media room, that clip still would have made the air, but Bradshaw would have been doing his big Southern chuckle act instead. It’s a fair punishment for a bad joke … or whatever that was. Better luck on talk radio, Rob.