5 coaches responsible for Matt Eberflus rise to Chicago Bears head coach
2. Rod Marinelli
Chicago Bears fans should remember Rod Marinelli from his days as a defensive line coach with Lovie Smith. From there, he found himself in Dallas from 2013-to 2019. First, he was working with Monte Kiffin, who worked with Tomlin, Morris, and the rest of the great Bucs coaching staff back in 2003.
However, Marinelli eventually took over as the defensive coordinator when Kiffen moved on. This wound up being arguably the strongest influence on the career of Matt Eberflus. Eberflus was a linebackers coach, but you can see that his time as defensive coordinator with the Colts saw him stealing techniques from Marinelli.
Colts DC Matt Eberflus learned "Patterns" call from Rod Marinelli in Dallas. The key is DL penetration with linebackers staying tight and cleaning up. If everything goes right, the defense takes away the RBs options and funnels the play where they want. Defense dictating the play pic.twitter.com/XwQtiFgA8M
— Zach Hicks (@ZachHicks2) July 2, 2020
Eberflus was the linebacker coach for Rod Marinelli from 2013-to 2017. The Cowboys loved what they had in Eberflus, and even wanted to move on from Marinelli and have Eberflus replace him. Eberflus could not do that to his friend.
The #Cowboys were prepared to promote Matt Eberflus to defensive coordinator to convince him not to join the #Colts. He refused to do that to Rod Marinelli because of how much respect he had for him. So the guy can coach and has character too.
— Ed Werder (@WerderEdESPN) November 13, 2020
This is what caused him to go to Indianapolis, and leave Marinelli in Dallas through 2019. You could argue his secondary decisions come from Kiffin, his defensive line tenacity comes from Marinelli, he is a star at developing linebackers, and his overall demeanor on defense is that of Rob Ryan. While some fans have wanted Lovie Smith, they should see at least some familiarities when it comes to the Tampa-2 principles and the defensive line play.