With no players to coach during the lockout, Bears coach Lovie Smith has a new goal for his assistants, and himself: Get coached on coaching by other coaches.
Toward that end, former Buccaneers and Colts coach Tony Dungy will visit Chicago on Monday to talk to the staff. Smith, who was an assistant to Dungy in Tampa Bay and who brought the same defense to Chicago that he and Dungy coached in Tampa, said he’s excited about what Dungy can teach his coaches.
“We’re just going to talk football for a day,” Smith told Dan Pompei of the Chicago Tribune. “There aren’t a whole lot of us still in our system who believe in it the way we do. We’re pumped up about him coming.”
When the Bears don’t have a guest coach in town, Smith has his assistants coaching each other. Offensive coordinator Mike Martz led a session with the whole staff in coaching quarterbacks. Defensive coordinator Rod Marinelli led a session on pass rushing. And the coaches have gone over all the major decisions they made during the 2010 season and discussed what worked and what didn’t.
For Smith, the underlying theme of all this work is getting better than the Packers.
“Everything has to be about beating our rival, as it is every year,” Smith said of the Packers. “And there is a little bit of added emphasis on it this year. They are at the top of the hill. . . . We match up pretty good with them. Your gauge has to be the Super Bowl champion.”