Ditka Reportedly Has Told the Bears He Will Not Be Back After 1987 Season

Mike Ditka, the Chicago Bears’ coach, has told his bosses he will not return after the 1987 NFL season because of a dispute over the team’s firing of its general manager, according to a newspaper report published Sunday.

The Boston Sunday Globe said Ditka told Michael McCaskey, the club president, of his intentions after McCaskey refused to rehire General Manager Jerry Vainisi, who was fired last week.

“Then this season is my last,” Ditka is reported as saying. “Don’t even bother to ask me about signing an extension of my contract, because I won’t do it.”

After the conversation, Ditka reportedly told his assistant coaches that 1987 would be his last season with the Bears and if they wanted they were free to start looking for new jobs immediately.

The Globe said Ditka was “fuming” because Vainisi is his best friend and Ditka’s strongest ally in Chicago’s front office.

“Ditka and Jerry are best of friends,” according to an unidentified source quoted by the newspaper. “When the ‘big four’ (Ditka, McCaskey, Vainisi and personnel director Bill Tobin) got together, Jerry usually backed Ditka. This is what happened with (Doug) Flutie, and McCaskey didn’t like it. It happened three or four times, and McCaskey wasn’t happy about it.”

McCaskey said he dismissed Vainisi because of “philosophical differences.” He said Vainisi still is a consultant.

Vainisi, however, still considers himself the team’s general manager and has two years left on the contract given to him by George Halas in 1983.

“Jerry’s lawyer told him to keep on going to the office and doing his job,” the source said. “So that is what he is going to do. The whole thing is a mess.”