SUPER BOWL XX : CHICAGO BEARS vs. NEW ENGLAND PATRIOTS : MR. DEFENSE : You’re No Buddy Till This Buddy Berates You

Remember the Rams’ hurry-up offense at the end of the half in the NFC title game at Chicago two weeks ago--the one that almost got called for delay of game?

Well, the Rams’ old pal, Buddy Ryan, assures them that they didn’t blow it, that it was his defense that did them in.

“They had the right call,” the Bears’ defensive coordinator said Tuesday. “We knew what they were gonna do, like everybody’s gonna do. They’re gonna run double corners or double posts.

“We were settin’ back in a zone, which usually you don’t play in that area, and they saw their big stud come out of the backfield open--they thought--so they threw it to him, and they were trying to call time out while he was still running with the football, and you can’t do that.”

Translation: Quarterback Dieter Brock sent both wide receivers into the corners of the end zone, but when he saw that Bobby Duckworth was covered to the left, he dumped the ball off to Eric Dickerson over the middle. Dickerson was tackled at the five-yard line as time ran out, and the Bears went on to a 24-0 shutout victory.

“It wasn’t a coaching mistake,” Ryan said. “They had plenty of time. They were gonna throw the ball out of the end zone if it wasn’t open, then they saw him come out underneath open--at least they thought--and threw it to him. But he didn’t get it in there that time.”

In Ryan’s view, if the Rams weren’t ready to play the Bears, it wasn’t because they lacked the manpower to match the National Football League’s strongest defense, just the time to prepare for it.

“I think it would be pretty hard for any offensive line to be better than the Rams’,” Ryan said. “They’ve got about all of ‘em going to the Pro Bowl.”

It was Ryan, of course, who predicted that the Bears would hold the Rams in check. They did, limiting Dickerson to 46 yards.

“We talked a good game before it, and we had to execute to make it look good,” Ryan said. “It has a purpose against some teams, in some situations. Something bothered ‘em.”

How did Ryan know that Dickerson would fumble?

“ ‘Cause I had him in the Pro Bowl (the Bears’ staff coached the NFC squad last year) and he laid two down there and cost me $5,000. (The AFC) ran one back about 80 yards for a touchdown.”

Five thousand dollars is the difference between a winner’s and loser’s share in the Pro Bowl.

Still, Ryan had praise for the Ram running back.

“He’s a great football player,” Ryan said. “We had to play a great game to shut him down. I don’t think you’re ever gonna say Dickerson’s a wimp. There’s a lot of wimps in this business, but I wouldn’t call him one of them. Most of them are playing way outside somewhere.

“Really, to (get ready to) play us in a week is tough. Any coach with any guts will tell you that. We give them so many fronts and so many (pass) coverages that it’s tough to run all your plays against (them in practice). You don’t know what front we’re gonna be in.”

How many fronts?

“We used 14 (against the Rams) last week.”

Coverages?

“Twenty-three. That’s a little more than average. Usually, we use 10 or 11 fronts and about 13 different coverages. It creates a lot of different blocking problems for them. Sometimes it looks the same and it ain’t the same.”

Ryan was reminded that the New England Patriots will have had two weeks to prepare.

“Oh, it should help them a great deal,” he said. “Of course, it’ll help us a great deal, too. Be sure to put that down.”

Ryan has reason to be pleased these days. His defense has shut out both of the Bears’ playoff opponents and he is being mentioned in connection with head coaching vacancies at Philadelphia and New Orleans.

Nearing 52, his star has never been brighter. At the moment, in fact, it seems brighter than that of Mike Ditka, the Bears’ head coach.

In his crusty way, Ryan is coy about his head coaching prospects.

“I don’t have no comment on any of that crap,” he said. “I’m here to try to get another Super Bowl ring.

“Oh, sure, if the opportunity presents itself and it’s right . . . I mean, I’m not gonna jump at it. If one comes along, it’d be great. If it doesn’t, I’m not gonna cry about it.”

Through seven years in college coaching and 17 in the NFL with the Vikings, Jets and Bears, Ryan has never been a head coach. “I feel like it’s long overdue that somebody felt that way,” he said recently.

But there is a sense that he would lose something, such as the tight control he exerts over the defense, which has become his own private empire with the Bears. Ryan coaches the defense; Ditka coaches the rest of the team.

“That’s not much different than anyplace else in the National Football League, is it?” Ryan said. “We get along fine.”

But Ryan is controversial. He speaks his mind, even going so far as to criticize his own management--telling the world that William (The Refrigerator) Perry was “a wasted drafted choice.”

Said Ryan: “I don’t worry about it ‘cause I always try to tell the truth and I don’t have to think about what I said last week.”

He can afford to say what he thinks. He holds a unique position of strength with the Bears, having been virtually assured a lifetime job by the late George Halas.

When rumors grew that Halas was about to fire Coach Neill Armstrong in 1981, the Bears’ defensive players feared that Ryan would be swept away in a purge. Free safety Gary Fencik rallied support for Ryan and wrote a letter to Halas, expressing the players’ support.

“We just wanted to make sure that George Halas understood our feelings,” Fencik said Tuesday. “He came up to Great Lakes naval training base, where we were practicing one day, and brought the defense together and said that he had never received a letter like that and would take it under serious consideration.

“He rehired Buddy before firing Neill, which I thought was unusual, to say the least. We’re very glad that he’s here, and I hope he stays here the remainder of my career. (We) had a very strong feeling for what Buddy Ryan had done, and it’s certainly been borne out the last few years.”

The defensive players are Buddy’s boys.

“I love ‘em, they love me,” Ryan said.

But he can be caustic, too.

“It’s just like your kids,” he said. “You chew them out, but you still love them.”

Said Mike Singletary, the Bears’ All-Pro middle linebacker: “It’s like a family, and he’s dad. We’re all sons. We get upset and yell. You’ve gotta let out frustrations. The worse thing you can do is keep it in. He gets fired up and lets you know what he thinks, but you won’t hear about it again.”

Ryan is particularly tough on rookies. Singletary remembers everyone, including Ryan, saying that he was too short at 5-11 to play in the NFL.

“For about a year and a half, it was like, ‘Where’s Buddy? I’m goin’ the other way,’ ” Singletary said. “Now I love him.

“When a guy works as hard as he does and really takes an interest in his players, you’ve gotta respect him. You grow to like him after that.”

Linebacker Wilber Marshall was “Baby.”

“He’s hard on all rookies that come in,” Marshall said. “That’s just part of it. Like the Fridge now, he’s getting the worst end of it. Next year he’ll fit in.”

Ryan calls Perry “Fatso” in public and has called him “Fat Boy” to his face, in front of his teammates.

“We all went through it,” Singletary said. “Sometimes you go to a new club and the players do all the initiating. If you’re on defense, Buddy does it here.”

Said Ryan: “I’m tough on All-Pros, too, if they don’t do things right. But they know how to do things right, so they don’t get quite as much flak.”

Deep down, he hinted, he even has some affection for Perry.

“He’s a good fat kid,” Ryan said, his eyes twinkling through his glasses. “Everybody likes a fat man, don’t they?”

Perry takes it in stride.

“I’ve been called lots of things,” he said. “I’ve got eight brothers and four sisters. You couldn’t use some of the things I’ve been called in a newspaper, so nothing anybody calls me bothers me. We get along good now. He pats me on the back, and we kid around all the time. He’s a great guy.”

Ryan is demanding of a player’s mind as well as his body, and he appreciates those who commit both.

Of All-Pro defensive end Dan Hampton, he said: “(He) is a great competitor . . . the best tackle in football, but we’re playing him at end.

“Every coach ought to get to coach a Singletary. He’s the smartest, most dedicated, best linebacker in the National Football League. He covers people on nickel coverage for us. He runs our defenses for us. Great tackler.

“I get on him still. He’ll get mad at me and say, ‘Yes, sir!’ real loud. I’ll say, ‘Don’t you sass the coach.’ ”

Is Singletary still too short?

“I’d like to have a whole team of short ones like him,” Ryan said.

Fencik, Ryan said, will “hit you and he’s smart. If they’re a great athlete after that, that’s fine with us. But you’ve gotta have people who know what they’re doin’ and are tough enough to get it done.

“You have to have intelligent people. I’d take intelligence first and toughness second, and then if they’re a great athlete that’s a plus. If you’re a great athlete and you don’t know where to go and you won’t hit anybody, it’s not gonna help you.”

Ryan’s scheme is so complex that most players need a full season to learn it. He started developing it, he said, when he was an assistant to Weeb Ewbank with the Jets.

“I worked for Weeb for eight years and I used to listen to what he said hurt (his offense). I figured if mixing the coverages hurt Weeb, then mixing the fronts would have to hurt him, too. That’s the reason we mix so many fronts.

“We’re more of an attacking type defense. We’re gonna try to make things happen and not wait for something to happen. Weeb’s idea was that to protect the quarterback was the No. 1 thing. So I figured if you were gonna beat a quarterback, you’ve gotta get pressure on him.

“When we blitz, we think we’re taking an academic approach, that we’re gonna get there. We’ve got a reason to blitz and places to blitz from.

“We try to exploit any quarterback we can. If we blitz, we don’t blitz the quarterback. We blitz people’s (blocking) pickup schemes. Whether it’s (Joe) Montana or whoever it is, we’ve been pretty successful against a lot of quarterbacks.”

The 46 defense, named for former Bear safety Doug Plank’s number, is the team’s trademark.

“We have all kinds of categories of the 46,” Ryan said. “We have the nickel 46, the 46 regular, and a 46 substituting a defensive end in there. We’ll have some different variations figured out for this game.

“Sometimes we’ll use it 90% of the game, sometimes we’ll use it 10%. (Against the Rams) it was probably 40%.”

Other teams have imitated it.

“Some of them have done a pretty good job,” Ryan said. “It’s what Oakland used quite a bit against (the Rams) in the last half. Well, I guess the L.A. Raiders is what y’all call them now. I’ve been in the league too long.”

When some mimics have failed with the 46, the explanation has been that they lacked the Bears’ talent--an oblique slight that Ryan doesn’t let slide.

“We’ve had a lot of different people over the years and been successful with it,” he said. “Knowing how to do it might help, too. You get so much out of film and so much out of coaching clinics, but you’ve still gotta know what you’re doing.”

Ryan isn’t quite ready to honor this group as his best defense.

“Well, they’re probably not quite as good as last year’s or the ’79 defense, the Jet defense I had, the Minnesota Super Bowl defense (in 1977).”

Ryan is hard to please.

“Very hard,” he said. “But, if they win this game, they’ll prove they’re probably the best I’ve been associated with.”