PRO FOOTBALL ’87 : COACHES, PLAYERS, TEAMS AND TRENDS TO WATCH THIS SEASON : BEARS: In the Land of Constant Turmoil, Can Right Man Shoulder the Load Again?

Jim McMahon, the quarterback who led the Chicago Bears to the championship in Super Bowl XX, discovered the other day that his coach, Mike Ditka, was about to light a cigar.

Thoughtful as ever, McMahon handed over a cigarette lighter.

As Ditka smiled his thanks and started to light up, he jumped, fumbled the cigar, and dropped the lighter as if it had bitten him. Which it had, sort of. It was wired for electric shocks.

“I thought the whole thing was hilarious,” McMahon reported later.

Juvenile humor always appeals to McMahon. So does mainstream humor, for that matter. Life to him is a party and a game, although, as the National Football League’s biggest money-maker, he has become the first $4-million quarterback. Despite the many injuries he has had, he earns somewhat more than that a year, reportedly, from the Bears and others.

This year McMahon only has one problem. Once more, he can’t play. A bad shoulder will keep him on injured reserve during the first six weeks of the 16-week regular season.

When Chicago’s season starts Monday night with a meeting of the Bears and New York Giants--the last two NFL champions--the Bears will be quarterbacked by an undrafted walk-on from Ohio State, Mike Tomczak.

The doctors have assured McMahon that he’ll be back this fall eventually. He expects to return in time to lead another parade to the Super Bowl.

But this week, at the club’s Lake Forest practice grounds, his health is a worrisome thing--though hardly the only worry. Unhappily for the Bears, they have a basket full of troubles.

“We’re like a big family, you know, and there’s some good fights in every family,” said wide receiver Willie Gault, one of many in the organization who have had differences with McMahon. “If we didn’t fight a lot, we wouldn’t be the Bears.”

The truth is that, throughout the Ditka-McMahon years, turmoil has been this team’s constant companion.

“It’s a crisis-a-week team,” Ditka agreed.

Consider the matchups:

McMahon vs. Ditka

When McMahon is able to play, the coach and quarterback work well together in Bear games, but their differences continue to make headlines in Chicago--usually when the impatient coach is fining the impetuous quarterback for missing practice or casually breaking club rules.

Ditka vs. McCaskey

The coach and the club’s president, Michael B. McCaskey, apparently decided long ago that they would never found a mutual admiration society. Neither is the other’s type. Ditka, though a square-shooter, is tough-talking and rough-edged. McCaskey, the smooth, civilized grandson of the late George Halas, came to the team by way of Yale and the Peace Corps. Not until two weeks ago--six months before Ditka’s contract would expire--did McCaskey get around to tacking on another three years.

McCaskey vs. Vainisi

Possibly sending a message to Ditka, McCaskey last year fired the coach’s best friend, Jerry Vainisi, the Bears’ general manager. In a strange aftermath, Vainisi now works for the rival Detroit Lions as general counsel, though he remains Ditka’s friend and business partner in Chicago.

McMahon vs. McCaskey

Through much of McCaskey’s term, McMahon has been critical, often publicly, of the boss. His opinion is that McCaskey took too much credit for the Bears’ successful Super Bowl team two years ago. The McMahon contract extends through 1988. Reports persist in Chicago that in the view of management, McMahon, like Ditka, can be replaced.

Ditka vs. Tobin

During a draft day conflict last spring, Ditka argued for Alex Gordon, the University of Cincinnati linebacker who has started fast this summer as a New York Jet. The club’s chief scout, Bill Tobin, lobbied for a pair of Big Ten quarterbacks--specifically, he wanted Michigan’s Jim Harbaugh as the Bears’ first draft choice to back up Ohio State’s Tomczak--and McCaskey had to decide it. The Bears took Tobin’s guy.

Ditka vs. the Future

As a rookie, Harbaugh isn’t expected to play this year unless the crisis worsens for Ditka, who has already lost McMahon and Steve Fuller to injured reserve. This leaves the harassed coach with two of the five quarterbacks he thought he had as recently as three months ago. These are Tomczak and Doug Flutie--neither of whom, you can count on it, is bound for the Hall of Fame. Against the Raiders Saturday, Tomczak completed 3 of 12 passes, for 22 yards, and didn’t look that good.

McMahon vs. the Press

Though cordial in relationships with national writers, McMahon hasn’t been on speaking terms recently with local beat writers. They said he is sensitive to criticism. He said his remarks are used out of context.

McMahon vs. the Offense

Unable to make the playoffs last year, McMahon publicly criticized Ditka for using Doug Flutie instead of McMahon pal Tomczak. This prompted Ditka and McCaskey to agree that McMahon has a gift for undermining the team.

In a separate critique, the club’s swiftest receiver, Gault, suggested that McMahon has often ignored him on pass plays, and that he is still being under-used. “But we’re pros,” Gault said. “It doesn’t affect (team) performance.”

McMahon vs. the Defense

Dan Hampton and other Chicago defensive players charged last year that McMahon was faking his injury when he began missing a few games. This so outraged McMahon that he relayed the charge to a newspaper reporter, thus violating a clubhouse-meeting confidence. He won’t talk about it now, but the problem lingers. The defensive team still seems to resent the playboy quarterback.

Bear Defense vs. Bears

Members of the defensive team recall that they enjoyed lining up for 1985 Super Bowl Coach Buddy Ryan, who has moved on to the Philadelphia Eagles. Strongly favoring Ryan’s aggressive blitzing strategy, the team considers present Coach Vince Tobin (brother of Bill Tobin) too cautious.

“I guess it isn’t easy to see what we (Bear defensive players) are capable of,” said middle linebacker Mike Singletary. “At first, (Ryan) didn’t. It will take (Vince Tobin) time to realize our talents.”

Bears vs. the Law

In what Bear watchers deem a typical escapade by a loose and defiant team, McMahon and eight other players were stopped and ticketed for speeding last month on a highway from their training camp.

Tight end Emery Moorehead won first place with a speed of 86 m.p.h. McMahon was timed at 78 m.p.h.

“They made us look bad,” McMahon said. “If they’d seen us a few minutes earlier, we were all going over 100.”

It has surprised few that McMahon would be one of the Bears’ scofflaws. The man in the punk hairdo wearing wraparound sunglasses--and, sometimes, a billboard headband--is in the midst of most of their controversies.

He dominates Bear news, and, often, even NFL news. Last month at the height of the baseball season, McMahon’s picture was on the covers of such diverse national magazines as Business Week and Sports Illustrated.

The overriding pro football question this year is how much McMahon plays. In most newspapers and national magazines, the premise has been identical: If McMahon plays a lot, it’s another championship year for the Bears. If he doesn’t, it’s another Giant year.

That’s a big load for McMahon, but, at 28, he’s used to the spotlight. So is Ditka, who will be 50 next month. Both are former first draft choices of the Bears.

And both are rich. Ditka is believed to be one of the NFL’s few coaches with an income of more than $1 million a year from endorsements, personal appearances, his salary, his book and his restaurant.

McMahon, meanwhile, as the NFL’s runaway endorsement champion, makes $3 million a year plugging Taco Bell and four or five other products, according to Business Week magazine.

His total annual income exceeds $4 million, Chicago market sources estimate after adding up McMahon’s endorsement money and his receipts from investments, a book, his restaurant and his Bear salary.

The salary is only $650,000, hardly bigger than Ditka’s. On the other hand, McMahon, unlike Ditka, can and does wear Adidas headbands--not to bait Pete Rozelle, as he likes to imply, but to get richer.

In the revised edition of the best seller, “Ditka”--co-authored by Chicago Tribune writer Don Pierson--the Bear coach says that in spite of their differences, he and McMahon are really much alike.

“If I wasn’t the coach, we’d probably be best friends,” Ditka writes (dictates).

In the same book, deploring the long-lived turmoil of the Bears, Ditka cautions his team not to let player rifts--some involving wives--affect friendships.

“Friends are hard to find,” Ditka writes (dictates). “You can find a wife anywhere.”

GREAT ROTATOR CUFF CONTROVERSY

McMahon’s medical problem--the one that is keeping the $4 million quarterback inactive--is that he’s still recovering from rotator-cuff surgery in the shoulder area of his passing arm.

Nine months following the operation, it’s still too early to tell if McMahon will be able to play the quarterback position properly later this month, or next month--or this winter, or next season.

“I can throw the ball a while if I don’t throw too hard or too far,” he said. “And sometimes I can’t throw two days in a row.”

Said Gault: “Jim looks strong for 10 minutes, then (his passes) begin to lose velocity.”

Most of the baseball pitchers who have undergone rotator-cuff surgery missed a season or more before they could come back. This may be McMahon’s destiny as well. But based on the history of this kind of surgery--a history that isn’t very full because there haven’t been many cases--he will eventually come all the way, or most of the way, back.

Curiously, rotator-cuff damage is hard to detect. In the East last fall, specialists studied McMahon’s shoulder X-rays a number of times without finding the rip. This was during a period of months, when, after reading the various medical reports in Chicago newspapers, his teammates and coaches alleged, privately at first, and then publicly, that he was malingering.

The McMahon tear was finally discovered only later in the fall during highly sophisticated X-rays at an Inglewood clinic.

After tearing it on opening day last September, McMahon gamely played five more games before Green Bay’s Charles Martin slammed him around on Nov. 23.

“The slam was just the last straw,” McMahon said. “I shouldn’t have played any of those five games. I might have shredded the whole cuff. It could have been the end (of football) for me.”

This year, as they did all last year, McMahon’s coaches and teammates are hoping for the best. But a rotator-cuff problem isn’t a bruised shin.

LIFE STYLES OF THE RICH AND FAMOUS

For the first time in his career, McMahon is practicing how to protect himself in the clinches.

“He has been working on how to fall and roll,” Ditka said.

Formerly, McMahon was football’s most reckless quarterback. For example, despite a series of knee, head and kidney injuries, among other injuries, he has regularly disdained the downfield slide.

Not surprisingly, he has missed more than half the Bear games that have been played since he became the club’s starter five years ago.

Will he be as reckless as ever when he returns this time?

“I hope he’s more realistic, more cautious,” said Ditka.

Said McMahon: “I don’t know how to play any other way. There’s no safe place on a football field.”

Meantime, waiting his next turn, he seems about as playful as ever. He still wears crazy hats and invests in cigarette lighters that bite.

“He dresses funny to get a laugh from his teammates,” said Ditka.

Willie Gault said: “Most of the funny things he says and does are good for the team. When you’re serious, you tighten up.”

McMahon’s wife, Nancy, sees it about the same way.

“Sure, he likes to act crazy,” she said. “But it’s his way of getting himself ready for football. Football is a job, but it’s also a fun thing to do, and he wants to make it fun.”

Nancy McMahon, who met Jim at BYU, said that the quarterback is usually different at home.

“The Jim I know likes to have a quiet family dinner, and then put Sean and Ashley to bed,” she said.

A third McMahon child is due in December.

Jim and Nancy are sinking their roots deeper into Illinois. They’re building a new house on three acres of a nearby suburb in this heavily wooded area inland from Lake Michigan. It will have four bedrooms, a computer room, several playrooms and a swimming pool.

“We broke ground in June,” Nancy said. “We’re projecting the (housewarming) for next March.

“Jim and I grew up in California (the Bay Area), and we’re both from big families. He’s the second of six children, and I was in the middle of seven.

“We like people around, people we know. We’d much rather have them here than go out--anywhere.” And these days, here is Illinois. “We love the Chicago area,” Nancy said.

Only one thing makes her nervous: Game day at Soldier Field, site of some of Jim’s biggest games and most reckless adventures.

“When there’s a day game, I’m so nervous, I can’t even teach Sunday school,” she said. “It isn’t that I’m afraid he’ll get hurt again. It’s not that. I just want him to do well. The Jim I know is so hard on himself when he doesn’t.”