Makes You Wonder What he Said to the Team

Rod Marinelli said his goodbyes to the Detroit media today at Senior Bowl practice in Mobile, Alabama. According to Tom Kowalski on Mlive.com, as three reporters from Detroit approached Rod at the practice, Marinelli waved them off, pointing his thumb over his shoulder and saying "goodbye ladies."

Oh Rod Marinelli, we hardly knew ye. Kowalski also points out that he had been told that Marinelli did not like the media in Detroit and would often bad-mouth them behind closed doors (I bet Ed Werder would let us know what Rod said). As a battered Lions fan, I saw Rod's weekly spewing of the same sound bytes over and over.

This kind of disdain for the media Marinelli showed recently is not the best way to make friends or win over public opinion, but it certainly would have been more exciting. Especially after he was 0-14 or so and had nothing to lose it would have been nice to see him go off on the press once in a while, or throw a punch at Rob Parker.

Another thing this story made me think of was Rod's farewell to his team. I'm sure he liked them a lot more than he liked reporters and may have been beaten badly if he called them ladies, but you have to think he had some ammo for the players if he felt so inclined.

Personally, I would love to learn that he went off on Kitna, berated Orlovsky for running out of the endzone, or told the offensive linemen and defensive backs that they could trade positions and the team wouldn't be any worse for it.

All in all, Marinelli is a respected position coach with a reputation for discipline and he should be a good fit for the Bears. It is scary to hire a coach that just went 0-16, but the Bears made a nice hire.