LAKE FOREST, Ill. – Disappointed with a lack of consistency in 2008, Lovie Smith revealed Tuesday that he will be more involved in play-calling and other aspects of the Bears defense.

Lovie Smith has compiled a 45-35 regular-season record in five years as Bears coach.

Smith said that Bob Babich will retain his title as defensive coordinator while also serving as linebackers coach, a role that he filled from 2004-06.

“As head football coach, I’ve been involved throughout—a little bit with the offense, a little bit with the special teams, but most of my involvement has been with the defense, and I’ll be even more involved this year,” Smith said during a conference call.

“With Bob taking on the linebacker duties, that doesn’t necessarily free him up, but with additional duties I will be helping him coordinate the defense.”

Asked to clarify whether he will call plays, Smith said: “Yes, that’s exactly what I said.  I have been involved a little bit. My involvement will be a lot more now in that situation. … I think this is what will help us get back to where we need to be.”

The Bears on Tuesday also hired Jon Hoke as defensive backs coach. Hoke, who appeared in 11 games as a cornerback with the Bears in 1980, spent the past seven seasons in the same role with the Houston Texans. Hoke joins Rod Marinelli, who was hired by the Bears on Saturday as defensive line coach/assistant head coach. Together, the two have 20 years of NFL experience.

“We haven’t gotten the staff together completely right now,” Smith said. “Rod and Jon will get in a little bit later on and then we’ll go into some more of the details as to who will be doing what.”

In terms of his past involvement with the defense, Smith said: “I had involvement early on when we were one of the best defenses in the league and I’ve had a lot of involvement the past couple years when we haven’t. Some of these changes that I’ve made I think will help us get back to that position. I’m excited about taking a more hands-on approach to helping our defense get back to where it was.”

Smith was criticized by some for releasing position coaches Brick Haley (defensive line), Lloyd Lee (linebackers) and Steve Wilks (defensive backs) while retaining Babich. But the Bears coach explained his thought process.

“Just looking at the entire staff defensively, I wasn’t happy with what we did,” Smith said. “I evaluate our group each year and that’s what I did this past year. After my evaluation, I thought these changes were necessary.

“Getting rid of Bob Babich was not a part of that. Bob’s duties have changed like all of our guys’ duties have changed. No one is in the same position that they were defensively last year, so there weren’t any scapegoats. The guys I thought that didn’t need to be here any more, we needed to go a different direction from, we did that. The ones that stayed, I think these guys all bring something to the table.

Bears middle linebacker Brian Urlacher was named NFL defensive player of the year in 2005.

“Brian Urlacher’s [defensive player of the year] season [in 2005] was with Bob as his linebacker coach. So that’s the guy that you would like to keep here, and try to just build on some of his strengths, and that’s what we’ll do.”

Smith isn’t worried that adding play-calling duties will be too taxing on him.

“I’m a big boy,” he said. “After five years in this role, you find out exactly how much time you have and where you have time to do a few more things. This past year I coached the nickels for about half of the season and enjoyed that quite a bit. So I saw that I had a little bit more time to do some of these things.

“There are a lot of offensive coaches in the league that call plays, that do a little bit more on their side of the ball where their expertise is. For some reason, a lot of defensive coaches haven’t done it. But I think it’s time to change some of that.”

Smith is excited about working closer with individual players like he did as linebackers coach with the Buccaneers from 1996-2000 and as defensive coordinator with the Rams from 2001-03.

“I think all head coaches will tell you that they miss being able to have a position and some of the hands-on coaching you get a chance to do by having your own position, and of course some of the play-calling, you miss that,” Smith said. “That’s what you’ve done all your life. Every year I’ve missed some of that.

“But it’s not far away. It’s not like I haven’t been involved in the play-calling. I don’t want to say that at all. I have been. This past year in some of our worst games that we played, I was involved in that and I realize that, and together we’re going to all make it right.”