LAKE FOREST, Ill. – The entire Bears coaching staff remained hunkered down in meeting rooms at Halas Hall Wednesday, studying and dissecting tape of the 2008 season.

“Now it’s just about evaluating everything that we do: personnel, scheme; all of that,” said coach Lovie Smith. “We still have personnel meetings with [general manager] Jerry [Angelo] and all of that coming up, but right now we’re evaluating what we did on offense, defense and special teams.”

Lovie Smith and Rod Marinelli, pictured here at last year's NFL combine, are former roommates who worked together on Tony Dungy's staff in Tampa.

After watching every game in its entirety, Bears coaches have been viewing situational cut-ups, from red zone snaps to third-down plays and everything in between.

“You’re critiquing every play a lot of different ways,” said Smith, who is entering his sixth season as Bears coach.

New defensive assistants Rod Marinelli (line) and Jon Hoke (secondary) have spent the past few weeks familiarizing themselves with their personnel.

Marinelli was considered one of the NFL’s top defensive line coaches when he worked alongside Smith on Tony Dungy’s staff a decade ago with the Buccaneers.

“Rod’s been in the system,” Smith said. “He’s a disciple of the system. He believes in it fully. It helps when you have someone who’s been there since Day 1 like Rod has been with the front.

“He knows exactly what he’s looking for player-wise, and there’s the credibility that he comes with for our defensive linemen. All of them have been through [Halas Hall to meet him] and they’re excited about what he can bring to the table.”

The arrival of Marinelli and Hoke is one reason the Bears have decided to move their full-squad minicamp up more than two months to March 17-19. Another is that it will give decision-makers one final look at the current roster in advance of the April 25-26 NFL Draft.

“We’re not playing in the Super Bowl, and I think you need to do some things a little bit different,” Smith said. “First off, we have new coaches. We want them to see the guys as soon as they possibly can, and that’s the first day we can actually start.

“And we just want to set a new tempo for the guys to let them know exactly what’s expected of them a little bit earlier. It’s not a scheme camp or anything like that. It’s just about fundamentals and setting a tempo, some of those small details that we’ve gotten away from a little bit.”

Just like in past years, the Bears will still conduct their rookie minicamp one week after the draft, begin their 10-week offseason program in April, and conduct OTA practices in the spring.

Smith, meanwhile, will head to Tampa this weekend to attend Super Bowl XLIII. While he’s not looking forward to fighting the traffic en route to the game, he plans on arriving well before kickoff—not only to soak in the atmosphere but to do a little scouting.

“As a head coach, you never get a chance to see another team warm up,” Smith said. “Some of those basic things that most other folks aren’t interested in, like what’s going on on the sideline, we never get a chance to see that as a head coach. There are a lot of benefits in being there.”