Patriots and Media Take Their Lumps as Ditka Celebrates

The reign of the Chicago Bears as Super Bowl champions started in character, with Papa Bear II, Mike Ditka, outfitted beautifully in a subtly striped double-breasted blue suit, which was set off nicely by his red eyeballs, putting out his cigar to address the media one last time.

“The party was pretty good, if I remember right,” he said. “I’m going to stay off 294, though.”

I-294 is the highway outside Chicago on which Ditka was arrested for drunken driving after another of the Bears’ 18 victories this season. In this organization, they do everything hard: win, lose, suffer, party, rehash.

Ditka had a vintage George Halas press conference, all right. He laughed off some of the questions, disregarded others, let the Patriots know what he really thought of them, the media know what he thought of it and other sundry chips fall where they might.

By the time he was done, no one was wondering who Halas’ linear descendant was. Someone named Ed McCaskey may have earned the right to speak for the Bears by marrying Halas’ daughter, Virginia, but that doesn’t make him real Papa Bear material.

“All last week, you people started telling us how great the Patriots were for causing all those turnovers,” Ditka said. “All of a sudden, you forget who led the NFL in turnover ratio.

“There’s no question who the better football team is. You can analyze it any way you want to. We are a better football team.

“It was humorous to me. You’re asking, ‘Well, what are you going to do about them stripping the ball?’ Yeah, they got two turnovers, but we got more than that.

“We never teach stripping the ball. We flat knock it out of there. There’s a little difference. We don’t have to strip the ball, the way we play. They have to reach and grab. I’m not slighting them. If someone wants to coach that, fine. We coach a different level football.”

The media? Ditka made nice for a week here, disguising the fact that he only had one job: Get his team to the Superdome in shape to play and get the mismatch under way.

Did Ditka take the Patriots seriously?

Are you kidding? He put William Perry, now a starter on defense, back into the goal-line offense and, with the score 3-3, had him try to throw a rollout pass. You call letting a 300-pound nose guard run a halfback option when this game is still allegedly up for grabs taking an opponent seriously?

The Bears had even appeared primed for the big clutch, Walter Payton fumbling on their second play, Jim McMahon hitting Patriot linebacker Don Blackmon in the hands twice within his first three throws.

But all the Patriots got out of the fumble was a field goal. Blackmon made neither interception. Lin Dawson and Stanley Morgan dropped Tony Eason’s first two attempts at beating the Bear blitz, and after that, Eason stopped coming close.

Patriot tackle Brian Holloway: “We knew we had to play the best game we’d ever played to beat them.”

They missed by a bit.

It was then the Bear defense stepped in, or stepped on. The Patriots simply couldn’t get over their own line of scrimmage. Of the 13 plays they ran with Eason at quarterback, they gained yardage on one. Eason and Craig James lost fumbles. The last 5 minutes 59 seconds of the first quarter was played entirely inside their 25.

They didn’t get into plus-yardage until their last possession of the third quarter, by which time the Bears led, 44-3. This game was one-sided when it was 3-3.

Everybody had a good old time making fun of the Patriots, but all the Patriots did was take one for the rest of the NFL. Somebody had to play the Bears. Somebody stood to get plowed under.

What the Bears did to them, they’d have probably done to everyone else’s favorites, too. Included are the Raiders in what was once called a dream matchup. The Raiders would have had the personality to stand up to the Bears during the week, but the game--as suggested by the ’84 meeting when two Raider quarterbacks were knocked out--might have been something else again.

The usual day-after questions arise:

How far can the Bears go?

What’s their impact on the game?

Ditka: “It’s tough to repeat. Getting there is hard. You work very hard to get up the mountain and once you get there, you look down. Then you ask yourself, was the price I paid worth the reward? If you say that it is, then you can get back.”

The Bears have all sorts of problems that skipped the customary grace period, like Richard Dent’s daily renegotiation through the newspapers.

You’d think that their next training camp couldn’t be more tumultuous then the last one, when the devoted Mike Singletary held out and two teammates stayed out. Don’t bet on it, though. This organization has a long history of hard-nosing the help, another of Papa Bear’s legacies.

How about the Bear holdouts, Todd Bell and Al Harris?

Ditka: “Let’s savor this. Let’s not get negative, partner. Let’s live in the present. We’re going home and have a ticker-tape parade. You going to be there? I hope so, because you’ll enjoy it.”

What the Bears offer to football, the game, is the counterpoint to the theory that offenses would rule the ‘80s. Said safety Dave Duerson, who replaced the Pro Bowl holdout Bell and became a Pro Bowl player, himself:

“If Buddy Ryan can be duplicated, then offensive football will cease to exist. We’ve laughed all year long, the way teams have tried to play this defense. We have the only true 46 defense. What it amounts to is havoc, controlled havoc.”

Patriot quarterback Steve Grogan said: “If everybody starts doing that, it’s the end of offense.”

Added Darryl Stingley, the Patriot assistant personnel director who lives in Chicago: “The first thing I thought was, ‘Why should anybody suit up and play against them next year? All they can do is improve.’ ”

Several teams have put in elements of the 46. The Raiders did, naming it Raider 30, and did well with it, but they rarely went all the way to the Bears’ seven-man blitzes. The Falcons tried to, with results that were laughable. It takes more than putting eight men on the line of scrimmage and rushing most of them.

So far, no one has duplicated Ryan, the cantankerous defensive coordinator.

But if the idea catches on, the first down as we know it may be in trouble. Those of you who try to learn history’s lessons realize this is no certainty, however. Everyone may just retire to the projection room and figure out a way to beat it. Remember Bill Walsh’s offense of the ‘80s?

Could the Bears be more than a one-year dynasty? That’s why they play next season.

One way or the other, they were fun and stayed that way, right to the season’s final seconds.

Reporter: How about Jim McMahon’s injured hand?

Ditka: “You think that’s important? Last week, it was his headband, his ass, now it’s his hand. I don’t know. I betcha he plays in the Pro Bowl with it and plays well.”

It looked during the game as if McMahon would become the Super Bowl’s Most Valuable Player, but he was upset in a vote of writers by defensive end Richard Dent. The first announcement even said the award had gone to Jim Dent.

A man named Jim Dent covers the Cowboys for the Dallas Times Herald. When his name was announced in the press box, he is reported to have announced, “The bar is open!”

Ditka, who is closer to the offense--possibly because Ryan won’t let him near the defense--and retains a warm spot for his, um, unorthodox quarterback, was mildly upset.

When a reporter asked What Ditka thought of the selection, the coach answered: “Who votes for the MVP? Is it reporters? You answered your own question.”

Asked a Boston writer, loaded for Bear: “Who do you think ought to vote?”

Ditka said: “I thought that Jim Morrissey (a reserve linebacker) did a great job. Don’t get mad at me. This man asked me a simple question. I would say that Jim is not a favorite of you guys. You didn’t like his headband or something.”

There was kind of a neat irony to the whole exchange, since Ditka’s press conference was being held in conjunction with Sport magazine’s annual presentation of an automobile to the MVP. It was Sport’s panel of writers who had done the voting.

The winner, Dent, had already left for Hawaii and the Pro Bowl, so Ditka was brought over to accept the car.

“On whose behalf is he accepting it?” someone yelled.

Someone turned on the lights, the TV cameras started cranking, and Ditka said: “I think the selection of Richard Dent is a fair choice.”

It seemed as good a way to close a season as any. The clan of the cave Bears went home to glory.