Allen: ‘Shades of 1963’ : Bears Did It With Tough Defense Once Before--and Won NFL Title

After the Chicago Bears had folded, stapled and mutilated the Washington Redskins last weekend, Coach Mike Ditka received a telegram.

“Shades of ‘63,” it read. “Congratulations.”

It was signed by George Allen, who was the Bears’ defensive coordinator when Ditka was the tight end on the National Football League championship team in 1963.

To the Bears, the nine points by which the San Francisco 49ers are favored in the NFC title game Sunday are just another case of surmountable odds.

Flash back 21 years to Dec. 29, 1963, at Wrigley Field when the thermometer read 11 degrees as another Bear team prepared to play another offensive powerhouse for the NFL title--an era when such matters were settled without the attendant hype of Super Bowls.

“The Giants were favored to beat us, and (owner-coach George) Halas got mad at me because during the week some New York reporters did an interview with me,” Allen recalled. “The Giants had the top offense in football in those days. (Y.A.) Tittle threw 36 touchdown passes, a record. It was just broken this year by (Miami’s Dan) Marino.

“So I said (to the reporters), ‘Let me tell you something: The Giants haven’t faced a defense like the Bears’. Put that down and underline it.’ When Halas saw that in the paper he said, ‘Oh, you shouldn’t have said that. You’re giving ‘em ammunition.’ ”

But Allen was right as the Bears won, 14-10. He has the game ball to prove it, perched on a shelf in the den of his Palos Verdes home.

“We just killed ‘em,” he said. “We used a defense we hadn’t used all year against a certain formation. We called it 51 Mickey. We got two big sacks by Larry Morris on it.”

Tittle suffered a strained knee on one of the sacks and completed only 11 of 29 passes that day. Morris and defensive end Ed O’Bradovich set up the Bears’ touchdowns with two of Chicago’s five interceptions.

“We allowed 144 points in 14 games (a league record, since broken),” Allen said. “We got 36 interceptions . . . five in the championship game.

“We had a good physical defense, very similar to the (current) Bears’ defense. I was using the nickel (five defensive backs in passing situations). That’s my baby. We got two interceptions on the nickel that day.”

Allen also liked to blitz safeties and linebackers, although not as much as the Bears are doing now, he said.

“I also took out the middle linebacker and played five rush men. I called them rush men instead of defensive linemen, because defensive lineman is too negative.

“We didn’t keep track of sacks in ‘63, but I had ‘em keep track of fumbles and forced fumbles, and that year we forced 37 fumbles and recovered 22.

“What this proves is that regardless of the rules--and any rule change since 1977 has been put in to help the offense--you still have to have a defense to win.”

Allen later was head coach of the Rams, Redskins and Rams again, briefly, then was in the United States Football League the last two seasons before recently leaving the Arizona Wranglers.

He might still be a Bear at heart, though. After quarterback Jim McMahon was lost for the season with a lacerated kidney, Allen called club president Mike McCaskey to suggest that the Bears sign NFL veteran Greg Landry, who had played for Allen in Arizona.

“I told him, ‘Mike, you can’t go into the playoffs without an experienced quarterback. I’ll have him on the next plane,’ ” Allen said.

Landry, 38, is Steve Fuller’s backup.