As if the regret of the current season weren’t frustrating enough for Bears fans, they are being forced to reminisce about the worst days of Mike Ditka. Is that an echo from New Orleans, or just Memorex?
“Evidently, Donnell Woolford can’t cover anybody.”
Ditka isn’t treating the New Orleans Saints to anything remotely resembling a different Mike Ditka.
“We have no talent on offense, none,” he said.
“I think he’s trying to tear them down so he can build them back up is my read on it,” Saints’ General Manager Billy Kuharich said.
In that case, Ditka is coach of the year.
“I’m probably the wrong guy for this job,” Ditka said.
But he was always right for Chicago, right?
“They ought to get rid of me and get another coach in here who would have a calming effect.”
That’s what he said after the infamous 21-20 loss to Minnesota in 1992, which was indeed his last year as a Bear. It was the game lost after Jim Harbaugh’s audible was intercepted for a touchdown.
“If I wouldn’t have been critical, it would have been the same people who would have said: `Why don’t you say something?’ There is a good place where they can plant their lips.”
Ditka, hired by George Halas, was in the Bears’ job for a very short time when General Manager Jim Finks tagged him with a nickname: “Ready Fire Aim.”
“Old Ready Fire Aim will get it done,” Finks said.
Finks, who preceded Kuharich in New Orleans, was one of the all-time greats for nicknames. But Ditka’s players soon one-upped him, labeling Ditka “Sybil.” Quarterback Jim McMahon referred to Ditka’s wild personality swings as “Sybilizing.”
“I got my priorities out of whack for the last couple weeks, and it hurt me as an individual. In my case, I’ve got to relax. And I will. Oh, yes. you’ll see the most relaxed guy you’ve ever seen.”
That was in 1983 after he broke his hand against a locker. At least he did no bodily harm after last Sunday’s loss. By Monday, he had reformed: “I just realized that I can’t really control everything that happens on the field. I know this. I’ve learned this a long time ago. But yes I think I can.”
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This is the guy who as a kid got so angry at himself in a baseball game that he tore clumps of grass from the field and shoved them into his own mouth. When younger brother Ashton dropped a fly ball that cost a game, Ditka chased him over the center-field fence and halfway home before catching him and beating him up.
So why should the Saints take this personally?
There are stories of ugly confrontations with players behind closed doors, blowups Kuharich doesn’t deny.
“I think the same thing goes on in Bill Parcells’ meeting room,” Kuharich said.
Anything goes when you’re winning. Winning is what the Bears did most of the time under Ditka, and it’s a good thing. To this day, Ditka grouses about not making a quarterback sneak in his very first game as coach, a 17-10 loss to Detroit. He hated his 3-6 strike-shortened initial season, had nothing good to say about the 8-8 following season even though they won five of the last six. He thought they should have won it all in 1984.
There is no future plan in New Orleans. There is only now. What is nuts about Ditka is not so much his crazy tirades as his expectations. When nobody else thinks the Saints are closer than several drafts away from honest contention, Ditka really and truly thinks the Saints should be winning every game.
“What I need . . . is to keep working at making these guys believe, keep making them understand that we have a right to win. That we have as much a right to win as anybody else in this league,” Ditka said.
Not later, now.
“When you say long-range plans, what do you mean?” he asked.
There were no long-range plans in Chicago in 1986 when Ditka thought Doug Flutie miraculously could replace the injured McMahon. The parade of quarterbacks in New Orleans–Heath Shuler, Danny Wuerffel, Doug Nussmeier, Billy Joe Hobert–is only a replay of the Chicago chorus line–Peter Tom Willis, Will Furrer, Harbaugh, Mike Tomczak.
“This is our team. This is who we have to play with. If it’s not good enough, it’s my fault. I kept them here.”
Building a winner is of no interest to Ditka. Winning is.
“What I said after the game, I felt that way at that point. What I did, I did in the heat of anger, disappointment, and that was stupid. It was stupid,” he said.
“I was out in another world, I was gone. I had taken off mentally from the world. That was the first time in a long time that I had been faced with adversity and I handled it like a real nut.”
“I will not feel that way anymore, period,” he said.
“I promise you this: You’ll never see me yelling and screaming anymore.”