| DE Adewale Ogunleye: Marinelli Making a Difference Up Front by The Sports Exchange of BearReport.com, October 5, 2009 at 9:16am ET Adewale Ogunleye Profile Heading into their bye week, the Bears are clearly showing the effects of having Rod Marinelli as their defensive line/assistant head coach, especially when it comes to the pass rush. The Bears already have 14 sacks after getting just 28 all of last season. Adewale Ogunleye leads the Bears with 4.5 sacks and is on pace to surpass his personal best of 15 sacks in 2003, when he was with the Dolphins. The nine-year veteran credits Marinelli with his early success. "My career has been up and down, up and down," said Ogunleye, who had just five sacks last year. "I think I finally got a guy who's helped me forget about each play. Even after the sacks, I don't think about it. I go and try to get another one or just try to play for the now. I credit Coach Marinelli. He's helping the whole defensive line." Marinelli was fired as the Lions' head coach after going 0-16 last season, but he never made this week personal. The Bears wound up crushing the Lions 48-24 but were tied at halftime 21-21. "He didn't say one word about Detroit the whole week," Ogunleye said. "But we knew going in this was a game we had to get: one, because of our division; and two, because of him. The way he puts his heart and soul into coaching us, I'm glad we came out with our highest sack total (five) in this game." On the Bears' fifth sack, Lions rookie quarterback Matthew Stafford suffered a knee injury. ESPN reported Sunday that Stafford had a dislocated kneecap that popped back in while he was on the sideline. The concern among Bears defenders is not how they finish, but how they start. They allowed the Lions to pile up 273 yards of total offense in the first half, including Stafford's 221 passing yards, as Calvin Johnson scorched the secondary with five catches for 119 yards before intermission. "I guess we've got to get punched in the face a couple times to realize we're in a fight," said Ogunleye, who had 2.5 sacks. "The first half, I don't know. It takes us a minute." Actually, 30 minutes. "Defensively, we did not start the way we wanted to," Bears coach Lovie Smith said. "You have to give them a lot of credit. Detroit did a good job, especially Stafford throwing to Johnson. We weren't able to stop that the first half. In the second half, the guys did a lot better job, made a couple adjustments, did a lot better job with it." |
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