Old No. 46 just another sad reminder
Everything bothers me about the Bears these days.
They're like the brother-in-law you love because you're stuck with him, but everything about him drives you crazy.
My latest discomfort with the Bears came in the form of something that around the NFL was just another team hiring another assistant coach.
Around my breakfast table it was a bowl of yuck: Doug Plank is joining the New York Jets' coaching staff.
Plank played safety under former Bears defensive coordinator Buddy Ryan, father of new Jets head coach Rex Ryan.
The legacy of the Bears' famed and feared "46" defense is alive. Buddy Ryan developed it and named it for Plank's uniform number.
Rex Ryan's defense technically isn't the 46 but does reflect some of its elements - most of all a nasty attitude.
The Plank news reminds me a little of covering a White Sox game in what then was the Texas Rangers' new ballpark.
The place incorporated features of many old baseball parks and had more of the old Comiskey Park than the new Comiskey Park had. Now the Jets' defense will feature more Bears tradition than the current Bears defense features.
Sorry, but it always struck me as unfortunate that the Cover-2 defense employed by Bears head coach Lovie Smith is more Tampa than Chicago.
Graduates of the 46 are coaching all over the NFL - head coaches Ryan, Jeff Fisher and Mike Singletary among them, along with assistants like Plank and Ron Rivera.
Yet Smith digs the Bears deeper down the Cover-2 hole by hiring fellow Tampa alum Rod Marinelli as an assistant.
Listen, none of this means the Cover-2 can't be as effective as the 46. The Bears reached Super Bowl XLI playing it, and the Colts beat them there playing it.
Meanwhile, the Bears won Super Bowl XX with the 46 but also had losing seasons with it. Plank played on some of those losing teams and was gone by the time the Bears won the Super Bowl.
Anyway, my objections concern style more than substance. It's about what feels right and what feels wrong. When the Cover-2 succeeds, I tolerate it rather than celebrate it. When it fails, I condemn it rather than defend it.
What felt right was Buddy's boys trying to destroy opposing offenses, even when the personnel wasn't good enough to win many games. Plank symbolized the 46's approach by being one of the hardest-hitting safeties ever. A Bears defense should be all about attacking offenses, pressuring quarterbacks, terrorizing ballcarriers?
Win or lose - yes, quite often lose - the Bears were monsters. That doesn't seem to be the current defense's identity.
The Cover-2 or Tampa-2 or whatever is characterized as something that Bears history dismisses with disdain - bend but don't break.
Smith does preach forcing turnovers, but Bears football should force fumbles behind the line of scrimmage rather than 20 yards downfield.
Please, give me the 46 with a touch of Cover-2 instead of the Cover-2 with a touch of 46.
Seriously, the Jets' style will look more like the Bears' should look than the Bears do look, just as the Ravens' did while Rex Ryan was their defensive coordinator.
So around here Doug Plank won't be just another assistant coach with the Jets. He will be a bothersome reminder of how the Bears should play defense.