Bears banking on another Tice turnaround

[ChicagoBreakingSports]

By Brad Biggs

The Bears wanted new offensive line coach Mike Tice badly enough that they hired him even before they got around to bringing in Mike Martz as a replacement for fired offensive coordinator Ron Turner.

The reason? Tice has a proven track record working with linemen. The Jacksonville Jaguars didn't want to let Tice go, but he had an agreement with coach Jack Del Rio that if an opportunity to return to coaching a line somewhere came up, that Tice would be allowed to pursue it.

Now, he's charged with doing what Rod Marinelli wasn't able to accomplish a year ago: make a line better with the same personnel. Marinelli, now the defensive coordinator, was brought in to coach the defensive line in 2009 and it's difficult to say there was a marked improvement over what the unit had done previously under Brick Haley. Certainly it didn't look like the 2006 line that Don Johnson coached before he was abruptly forced out.

But Tice has his own challenge, reloading with a unit that was maligned last season and probably blamed more for offensive woes than was appropriate. That's not to say the line didn't have some real issues, but at least the Bears weren't sending out Qasim Mitchell at left tackle.

Mike Kurtz, who wrote the Bears chapter for Football Outsiders Almanac 2010, made an interesting comparison. He pointed out that the offensive line Tice took over in Minnesota as a position coach in 1997 was performing at about the same level as the Bears.

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[FQD1911]

<----very optimistic of Tice

(thank God Hiestand is GONE. that prick was the dumbest idiot to ever become a position close; honorable mention - Pep Hamilton)

 

[JJ-28]

If he can make O line shine then all us Bears fans will have a very long, very happy season coming up. I just hope he is even 85% right. If he does I can see a few of our Offensive players making it to the Pro Bowl might even find a #1 WR in our group just to make some of you happy.

 

[lrr50501]

The thing that really sticks out in my mind was an article awhile back on where OL was hitting the sleds and they said they haven't used those in a long time and never did under Turner. Tice is getting back to basics which is always a good thing under Turner it was finesse Tice is let us attack and brawl. I like the change and think OL will surprise a lot of people.