Mike Ditka’s stopover in Chicago Friday night is symbolic. It will remind him of where he has been as he embarks upon the season opener next week in St. Louis. Soldier Field is like the last exit ramp before the bridge. He could get off and spend the rest of his life in a golf cart at Bob-O-Link and nobody could really blame him except the New Orleans Saints. And who are they?
Ditka belongs to Chicago as one of the few NFL coaches to win 100 games within 10 years. His legacy (112 victories in 11 years) risks a severe tarnish job by taking on the only team in the NFL never to have won a playoff game.
Hogwash, Ditka says.
“I’m starting from scratch. That old record is all in the past. Somebody asked me about my legacy. I played hard. I coached hard. I left that mark. They can’t take that away. They can’t erase it. What’s there is there. They can forget about it if they want to. I’ve forgotten about it because I’m trying to deal with what we have now,” he said.
But what if he falls flat on one of the most recognizable faces in NFL history?
“I’m not going to fall flat on my face,” he said. “I never have and I don’t expect to start now. It’s not only me; it’s the people around me. I have good support and good players.”
With few exceptions, this has not been done before with much success.
Vince Lombardi won 98 games in Green Bay in nine years and was 7-5-1 in Washington before he got sick.
Dan Reeves won 117 games in Denver in 12 years and couldn’t break .500 in New York, nor does he have much hope in Atlanta.
Hank Stram won 129 games in Kansas City in 15 years and failed in New Orleans.
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Curly Lambeau won 212 games in Green Bay in 29 years and couldn’t get to .500 with the Chicago Cardinals or Washington Redskins.
Don Shula is the most notable exception. He was 73-26 for the Baltimore Colts in seven years and won 274 more in Miami.
Weeb Ewbank won championships with both the Colts and Jets, although he was 73-78-6 with the Jets.
Bill Parcells won 85 games and two titles with the Giants in eight years and got to the Super Bowl with New England, although he left with a .500 record.
Only a few won big and haven’t returned.
John Madden won 112 games in Oakland in 10 years and quit for the TV booth.
Bill Walsh won 102 in San Francisco in 10 years.
Joe Gibbs won 140 in Washington in 12 years.
George Seifert won 108 in San Francisco in eight years, but probably will return.
Like Ditka, most of them do come back.
“So if I do something, that’ll be something?” he asked. “Well then, we’ll do something just to make it special, just because people said we couldn’t do it.”
What’s this he said about good players?
“This defense could be pretty good,” Ditka said.
It all sounds very familiar.
“When he drafted me, he told me on the phone he was taking people from winning programs because he was in this to go back to the Super Bowl,” said undersized, overachieving defensive end Jared Tomich of Nebraska. “He believes that. You can tell he truly believes that. He’s a great motivator. Every time he speaks, my eyes light up. He knows what to say and when to say it.”
And will Ditka say anything to Michael McCaskey Friday night?
“If he’s on our sideline, I’ll see him,” Ditka said. “He wrote me a letter when I got this job and congratulated me. Nice letter. It surprised me. I wrote him back and thanked him for the letter.”
In the fit of nostalgia that will grip Bears fans Friday night, it might be wise to remember the circumstances of Ditka’s final year, when the Bears finished 5-11 after quitting long before the end.
“I lost the team,” Ditka admitted. “I quit having fun. I didn’t want to go to work. I knew what was happening. I had my office cleaned out a month before.”
So did McCaskey do him a favor?
“Probably. I probably wouldn’t have quit, so he did me a favor,” Ditka said. “I would have gone back to the job with a zeal and tried to rebuild it, but I don’t know. There were so many things that had to be done.”
As Dave Wannstedt is discovering.