by Ditka, Mike
Then we get the ball back, and McMahon goes in and on the first play throws a 25-yard touchdown pass to McKinnon. Two plays, 95 yards passing, two touchdowns. I can’t believe it. I have no idea how he’s doing it. They are blitzing the crap out of him because they didn’t think he could throw. They knew he couldn’t throw, and they knew his two touchdowns had to be luck. And then he throws another touchdown! This one a 43-yarder to McKinnon.
These are the busted-up Bears, remember? Are we tough? What do you think? McKinnon is just one of the guys who is playing hurt. I’ll tell you something about him. There was a game in 1987 when we were playing the Giants at Soldier Field and I was sick of Lawrence Taylor coming off the line like he was running a 40-yard dash with track spikes on and a hot babe at the finish line. I called McKinnon aside and told him he was going to come in motion from the outside toward the tight end, and he was going to be set up on Taylor for a strong-side block. “And you’re going to knock the shit out of him!” I added. L.T. went about 250 pounds and might have been the best defensive end or whatever he was, ever. Dennis went maybe 185, and his legs were beat and his arms were frail. You know what McKinnon said? “Okay.” That simple.
He came in on a jog, then squared up and just sold out and hit Taylor as hard as he could and sent him flying. L.T. got up and looked at me on the sideline and yelled, “Ditka, you’re an asshole!”
“What? I’m gonna let you run around and make every tackle?” I yelled back. “Watch out now. This guy’s got balls and he’s coming after you!”
“I truly wasn’t concerned about the contract or security at that time. All I wanted to do was make the Old Man proud. Make myself proud.”
—Ditka on 1984 contract negotiations
Taylor’s head was on a swivel the whole afternoon, and we negated his effectiveness. Dennis did, that is.
So anyway, back in the Minnesota game it’s still the third quarter, five minutes have gone by, and this crazy McMahon has thrown for three touchdowns and we’re ahead 30–17.
We won the game 33–24, Jim was the star of the hour, and I couldn’t have been happier with that scrawny McKinnon, either. Payton said, “It was like everybody came in at halftime and got out their rosary beads.”
I couldn’t have prayed for anything like that. But what I was thinking was that if it hadn’t been for our offensive line, none of this would have happened. If Walter hadn’t hit those two blitzers, it wouldn’t have happened. But here we are, and it did happen. I know we wouldn’t have won that game without McMahon. We wouldn’t have won the Super Bowl without him.
I had wanted to prove some stuff to myself, but I had to back off and admit I was wrong. Joe Namath and all those ABC guys were there, and now the Bears were a big deal. Like I said, I didn’t read the papers, but sometimes people told me what was going on. It was nothing new for me. The good guys were still good guys, and the assholes were still assholes. I mean, Tribune columnist Bernie Lincicome was still a jerk, what can I tell you? Writers started bugging me just to see what kind of a response they’d get. Sometimes I didn’t handle it very well, but there are times when there isn’t a good answer at all. Do you still cheat on your wife? I mean, help me out here.
I went on Channel 2 one time, and what’s her name, Diann Burns, asked me a question, and I just flat out told her, “That’s not a good question.” Especially after a game, I needed a little time to come down, to cool the burners. I was better on Mondays than Sundays. Better Wednesdays than Mondays.
I’m not defending my behavior. Could I have handled things better in my career, like when I jumped all over Avellini or Harbaugh or yelled at reporters? Sure. But I handled it the way I knew how, and that’s why I can’t go back and apologize to anybody. McMahon called me Sybil, I’ve heard. Well, screw it—I didn’t care what anybody said about me. I’ve always maintained that if your job isn’t important to you, then don’t do it. And my Bears job meant everything to me. I cared about what people said about my team, not me. It bothered me when I heard writers were writing bad stuff about the guys. I always felt like I was defending the entire history of the franchise.
I hate losing. I just do. Some things I can’t win at. You want to challenge me in ballet or nuclear physics, you’re going to win. But not in football. Not my Bears. Because I can do something about that.
It was like the season before, 1984, during the week leading up to the NFC Championship Game against the 49ers. The front-office guys wanted to redo my contract and sign me for another three years or something. I said, “Not now. We’re coming up against the biggest game the Bears have had in years.” It wasn’t so I could negotiate better later. It was that I wanted no distractions. Michael McCaskey, the president, didn’t seem to have a clue about that. He said, “I really want to announce it to the team, let them know you’re going to be the coach for a long time.”
I said, “They don’t give a shit about that. They just want to play football.”
Why was that so hard to understand?
We got whipped anyway. But I truly wasn’t concerned about the contract or security at that time. All I wanted to do was make the Old Man proud. Make myself proud. Not make New Man McCaskey proud.
Now there was less time to think about any of that outside stuff. We were 3–0, and looking solid. I liked the fact that our offense had now bailed out our great defense in two of the three games. That made me feel good. I guess part of it was my competition with Buddy, my desire to make him know that our side of the ball was as valuable as his.
I was also glad we had 10 days off before we played the Redskins at home. We could use the time to heal, and I knew some of the guys could use the time to party a little bit.
McMahon probably wanted to party, but by the next day he was back in his favorite spot, the Lake Forest Hospital. Now besides his bad back, he had an infected leg bruise. He was in traction, and he had this lower-leg thing that was getting treated with heat and antibiotics and elevation. The doc thought Jim might have gotten the infection from a hand cut during an exhibition game.
I was beginning to think that waking up each morning was a dangerous thing for this reckless guy. Whatever. The Bears were now on the map. And after his game in Minneapolis, Jim McMahon was near the center of it all.
chapter VII
Yolanda Is Waiting, Meester Deetka
Dexter Manley, the Washington Redskins’ unpredictable and loud-mouthed defensive end, said early in the week that even though quarterback Jim McMahon was a threat on offense, Walter Payton’s running was more of a trouble spot for the ’Skins. “We’re gonna have to knock Walter Payton out of the game, “Manley said sweetly. “We’re gonna have to do that.” Not bad logic, perhaps. But not genius, either. And definitely not good pregame hype.
The entire Bears team was studded with special athletes, special personalities. Payton was, indeed, the most special of them all. The wily running back out of little Jackson State was now in his 11th NFL year, and he desperately wanted a championship ring before his time ran out. He had been the leading scorer in NCAA history when he left college, but he knew he needed to make his mark on the big stage, the NFL, to leave a grand legacy. In 1984 he had played in his seventh Pro Bowl, but he had been on mostly mediocre teams thus far in his career with the Bears—and that was why getting so close to the Super Bowl the year before had pained him so much. Time waits for no one. And as a not-so-big (5-foot-11, 205 pounds) workhorse tailback who had already carried the ball over 3,000 times in his pro career—Walter’s clock was ticking fast.
“McMahon had recovered fairly well from his injuries—I mean at least he was upright and not in a body cast—and he came into the game almost like a real, non-limping quarterback.”
—Ditka on the Redskins game
A bigger problem for the Redskins, however, was their own record. They were 1–2 and had been wiped out in their season opener against the Cowboys 44–14 with quarterback Joe Theismann throwing five interceptions. Just the previous week they had nea
rly blown a 16–0 lead over the Houston Oilers before squeaking out a 16–13 win.
The Bears had beaten the Redskins 23–19 in last year’s first-round playoff, but it had not been easy. Indeed, the Redskins had taken an intentional safety in the fourth quarter of that game, just on the chance of getting the ball back in better field position for a final run at a victory. The gamble failed, but the intent was there. Ditka was not complacent or certain about this fourth game. He worried about a blabbermouth like Manley, but most of all he worried about a shrewd coach like Washington’s Joe Gibbs.
Anytime you play a Joe Gibbs-coached team, you worry. You know there’s a lot going on in that mind, and you know he’s thinking about stopping you. Joe retired years later, after winning the Super Bowl a couple times. Then he went on to be a car owner in NASCAR, and then I guess he got bored, because he came back to the NFL in 2004. He quit as the Redskins coach and president in 2008, and now he’s an advisor for their owner, Dan Snyder. Whatever, he’s no dummy, Joe Gibbs.
A season or so later, I said Manley had the IQ of a grapefruit. That was a dumb thing to say, but I didn’t need to hear him flapping his mouth all the time. Hell, he had his own problems with drugs and other stuff, anyway. A columnist in Chicago said Manley “had the biggest mouth in a city of politicians,” so that was about all you needed to know. And I was going to stand up for my guys against everyone, take the heat for them. When you’re a team, it’s like you’re actually all part of the same person. If I took the heat, so what?
The thing that happened in the Washington game was that it got away from the Redskins real fast. Sometimes that happens when nobody expects it. They had a guy, Jeff Hayes, who was their kicker and punter, and he pulled a thigh muscle kicking off after they first scored, and that just ruined them. Willie Gault took off after he caught the kickoff, made some fakes, turned on the jets, and ran right past Hayes for a 99-yard touchdown to put us up 10–7. It was the beginning of the second quarter, and by halftime we were up 31–10. Thirty-one points in a quarter is pretty big. Let people say what they wanted about our offense. You go get 31 points in 15 minutes.
Right away Washington had to punt, and I wondered who they’d put back there, and this is wonderful, because it’s Theismann. I’m thinking, “Look at that! That punt’s gonna go behind him!” When the ball was finished doing whatever it was doing in the air, then on the ground, it actually netted one yard. After that their backup quarterback, Jay Schroeder, punted. But it was over. We destroyed Washington 45–10, their worst defeat in 24 years.
If you look at the stats from that game, they’re deceptive. We only had 16 first downs and just 250 net yards on offense. They had 19 first downs and 376 net yards. And you know what? They did stop Payton. He only carried the ball seven times and gained six yards. But we were at our best, because we were opportunistic.
McMahon had recovered fairly well from his injuries—I mean at least he was upright and not in a body cast—and he came into the game almost like a real, non-limping quarterback. So you want to stop Walter, huh? Fine. Jimmy Mac hands him the ball and the whole Redskins team goes after Wally, and—la ti da—there goes Mac up the other sideline. Nobody’s on him, because why should you care about a beat-up quarterback like him? He just jogs away from everybody like he’s looking back, watching the play.
But Payton stops suddenly and throws a perfect spiral back across the field to McMahon, who runs in untouched for a 13-yard TD. That made it 28–10. Who cares if it’s the wide receiver who scores on a pass or the quarterback? People can say we were fortunate in that game, but we made our own fortune. Where was grapefruit Manley when Payton threw the ball?
The thing is, Walter was such a great football player that you could do things with him that you couldn’t with other backs. I think he could throw a football 70 yards. Hell, you think that touchdown pass to McMahon was his first in the NFL? It was his eighth! And he could punt. He did that for us a couple times in games. He could kick off. In college he kicked five field goals and over 50 extra points. When we really got busted up in one season, I even had him play at quarterback.
So far this season his stats weren’t great—even though he caught a 33-yard touchdown pass from McMahon later in the Redskins game—but we were winning. And his potential was always there. He could be the greatest decoy ever made. Think how much that helps a team. So far he had only 50 carries for 227 yards, which computed to about a 900-yard season. And he’d already had eight 1,000-yard seasons. He only missed going over 1,000 in his rookie year and in 1982, when there was a strike. But he had that pride that you couldn’t kill. Nobody worked harder than he did getting in shape. He was the best conditioned athlete on our team. He was like a rock. If he had any fat on him, you couldn’t have grabbed it with pliers. He’d run that hill of his down in Mississippi, and I think he had a hill here in the Chicago suburbs, and he’d leave guys who were trying to stay with him half-dead, puking their guts out at the bottom.
“When he was breaking away from tacklers, he’d lift his legs up like a drum major.”
—Ditka on Payton
In games after every run, he’d push the ball forward a few inches. The ref would move it back, but maybe over the course of his career Walter gained 50 yards that way. He had that high step, too. When he was breaking away from tacklers, he’d lift his legs up like a drum major. He did that in college, too. It was like his trademark. Some people may have thought he was hotdogging, but he never was a showboat, a hot dog, nothing. Never. You gotta have a little dislike for the other team, but you have to have respect, too, and I think Walter had the perfect mix. He respected all those guys trying to crush him, but he wanted them to know that the forearm to their chest or stiff arm right in their mouth was to prove they weren’t bringing him down.
I mean, how big a heart did this guy have? The year before in the Washington game I said, “It’s gonna be rough, Walter. We’re not blocking them very well.”
He said, “Coach, just keep giving it to me. We’ll pound ’em.”
“I don’t want you hurt,” I said.
“They can’t hurt me,” he said. “I’m watching them. They can’t hurt me.”
He ran like a madman in that game. When we lost the next week to the 49ers in the NFC game, Walter was devastated. He was limping pretty bad afterward. A reporter asked him if he was hurt. “Not on the outside,” he said.
Gary Fencik Remembers ’85
The D-Line Beats Up the O-Line
“There was a battle between the defense and offense, but really it was mostly the front four going against the offensive line. That’s how practices are.
“The defensive backs and linebackers might have drills, but even if you’re doing seven-on-seven passing or recognition drills, you’re not right on top of anybody. All the DBs are backed off, the linebackers are ready to drop back. You’re not just pounding someone.
“But the defensive line and the offensive line are always going at it. Our defense knew it was good, and we didn’t like to be beaten by anybody. Things would heat up and then there would be individual battles, and then Dan and Richard and those guys, they’d just get pissed off. So now they’re hitting and it’s intense. But I always felt it made our offensive line better. It was both sides trying to get better on the same drill, a tough thing.
“But there also was a deeper element, underneath everything. Buddy wouldn’t call the defense off sometimes, and that built up this rivalry of defense versus offense. Buddy had been re-hired as defensive coordinator by George Halas before Halas hired Ditka to be head coach. That’s highly unusual, to do it that way. Normally a head coach would hand-pick his assistant coaches. I mean, this was the founder and owner of the team who had done it. And I think it probably always was an issue. Buddy certainly would have liked to have been head coach, so the tension couldn’t be avoided.
“I give Mike a lot of credit for the way he handled it all. The defense loved Buddy, and eventually it benefited us all.”
Wal
ter and I talked at times. But we didn’t talk a lot. I’ll tell you the truth—there wasn’t a whole lot to coach there. He was a complete football player. He knew everything, and if he didn’t know, he’d just ask Suhey. Matt lined up in front of him a lot, to block—that’s how Walter grabbed his shorts and his jockstrap that one time—and anything Walter didn’t understand about a play, Matt would tell him. They had a great relationship. It was one of those really important relationships built on trust and having proved yourself to the other guy. Football teams, good ones, are full of small trusts like that. When they all come together, that’s when you have a great team.
Take that Washington game. Yeah, they had guys injured and they lost their punter. But we had three starters out, too. Including Covert at left tackle. That’s a pretty important position. But Andy Frederick came in and did a great job.
Now don’t get me wrong about Payton. He sure as hell wasn’t all serious and quiet. Everybody knows that. I didn’t mind guys having their own personalities. God knows I was no altar boy when I was a player, and I didn’t want a bunch of clones. But there was only one Walter, no matter what. Off the field he was beloved by the fans. I never once saw him say no to somebody looking for an autograph, to kids, to old folks, to the real people, anyway, not those frauds looking to get autographs and sell them. And he was a practical joker. If there was an explosion, you knew it was Walter. If a firework went off anywhere, anytime, you knew it was him. All kinds of stuff. He busted my balls all the time, and sometimes it was really good.
I remember I’d be in my office late at night and I’d get these phone calls. There’d be this Latino woman on the other end, and she had a thick Mexican accent and a real high voice and she’d say, “Meester Deetka, I am Yolanda. I am mucho caliente and I want to meet you at the motel down the street. I’m waiting for you! Pleez come, señor!”