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Imrem: Early signs good ones for Bears

John Fox did to Brandon Marshall on Wednesday what real NFL head coaches do to their players.

Fox used what essentially was a velvet hammer to hammer home a point to the Bears' problematic wide receiver.

Essentially this was it: We set a standard for our players, and if we conclude that you can't live up to it we'll replace you with someone who can.

Fans around here might have forgotten how the drill works after Marc Trestman drained it out of the Bears the past two years.

Fox was just hired here but has been an NFL head coach for a long time. He represented two different teams on two Super Bowl media days. He has been asked every question over and over again and over and over again.

So Fox was able to deliver fake waffling - revealing less than he knows - on quarterback Jay Cutler's future.

When Fox was tired of addressing the Cutler issue at the NFL Scouting Combine in Indianapolis, he put an end to the exchange with a disarming laugh.

Fox gently but firmly said, "We'll keep you posted."

End of that story.

Trestman couldn't even put the media in their place, so how could he keep his players in their place?

The indication Wednesday was that Fox could do both.

The Bears' new coach was asked what he would do if a player requested to fly to New York to tape a television show on his day off every week.

Marshall did that for Showtime last season, and Trestman offered no resistance or discouragement.

"I haven't had a chance to visit that," Fox started out saying.

Uh-oh, don't tell us that a visit is necessary, that Marshall still might be allowed to run fly patterns off the field as well as on.

Cool your jets, ladies and gentlemen, there's a rest of the story.

"I will say," Fox went on to say, "regardless of who it is, the focus and energy needs to be on what it takes for us to win a championship."

Bingo!

John Fox just told Brandon Marshall quietly and respectfully but emphatically to go to your room … if we decide you still have a room here.

Oh, B-Marsh, on the way pick up some game tapes and do a little studying in there.

Two coaches ago, Lovie Smith might have made a similar suggestion privately but not this publicly. The impression of Trestman was that he wouldn't have said it either way.

Fox wasn't the only one to lay down the policy that nothing, absolutely nothing, will get in the way of winning. First-year general manager Ryan Pace indirectly let Marshall know that what was OK inside Halas Hall last year no longer is.

Passion for football will be a requirement, Pace said. Football will be everyone's No. 1 priority, he added.

How refreshing this sounded in the context of following a regime in which players were allowed to run the team and proceeded to run it into the ground.

Look, none of what Fox and Pace said guarantees that the Bears will go 11-5 instead of last season's 5-11, or qualify for the playoffs, or contend for the Super Bowl.

The Bears still need better players for that to even be imagined.

But even better players need coaches to establish rules, enforce them and create an environment of hard work, discipline, commitment.

John Fox and Ryan Pace left little doubt that's the culture they intend to cultivate.

Brandon Marshall, Jay Cutler and all of their teammates should understand that now.

mimrem@dailyherald.com

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