PRO FOOTBALL: THE PLAYOFFS : It’s Bears, With McMahon, Against Redskins, With Williams

On one side you have a smart-mouthed quarterback with one foot in a sling and the other on ice, an aging running back with Super Bowl flights of fancy and a volatile coach with a Third World leader’s stability.

On the other side there is a quarterback who hasn’t started and won a National Football League game since 1982, a hot tub full of casualties and a workaholic coach who couldn’t tell that it was too cold to play outdoors this week.

Chill, mix, shake and serve on ice, because that’s how the Chicago Bears and Washington Redskins, champions of the NFC Central and East, will be playing this divisional playoff.

The forecast calls for a sunny 20 degrees, tops, with winds of 10 to 20 m.p.h. The winner will play host to the Minnesota Vikings in the National Football Conference championship game next week.

It’s so cold here that the Bears practiced in Notre Dame’s heated fieldhouse at South Bend, Ind., all week. They drove home Friday, presumably across Lake Michigan.

Perhaps inappropriately, William (the Refrigerator) Perry won’t start, having lunched his way out of the lineup, but even if he doesn’t play, he probably won’t be missed. Sold-out Soldier Field will be one big fridge.

The Redskins conducted their usual workouts at Redskin Park in Herndon, Va., getting fresh snow plowed off the field before they could practice Friday.

Their coach, Joe Gibbs, said his only concern was wind, not cold, and Soldier Field is notoriously as drafty as a bus stop.

Bear Coach Mike Ditka said the conditions could be “unbearable,” and he wasn’t trying to be punny.

“It could affect both teams,” Ditka said as a sub-zero storm bowed the city’s big shoulders during the week. “If we had played in that weather, somebody might have died.”

To some extent, the weather has distracted the focus of this game from the fact that these are two flawed teams, despite their past glory and 11-4 records. On their best days the ’87 Bears weren’t nearly what they were in Super Bowl XX two years past, and the Redskins mostly out-stumbled a mediocre group in the East.

Besides Perry, Ditka benched three other defensive starters before the last game against the Raiders, a 6-3 win.

Ditka will stick with the alignment that features Dan Hampton at his more natural position of tackle rather than end and retiring Gary Fencik at free safety.

Hampton’s presence in the middle strengthens the Bears’ run defense, although that doesn’t matter much because the Redskins are still rotating three runners, trying to find one who works.

Fencik’s presence may provide the spark Ditka is seeking.

“Gary brings guts and brains back to the defense,” Hampton said. “No offense to the other people, but Gary’s been in this league so long he can almost feel what the offense is trying to do.”

How much defense the Bears need depends on two things: How much offense their crystalline quarterback, Jim McMahon, and Redskin counterpart Doug Williams can produce.

Shoulder, arm, groin and, currently, hamstring problems have kept McMahon out of 5 of the Bears’ 12 non-strike games.

“I don’t think I’ve ever been 100%,” he says.

But the Bears feel like a better team with McMahon rather than backup Mike Tomczak on the field, and no wonder. He has won 28 of his last 29 starts.

He hasn’t played since Dec. 6, when he tore the hamstring, and concedes that he may not as mobile as usual, but the Redskins are not relieved.

Gibbs said: “If you look at his past history, when he’s been out, he’s come back great.”

McMahon has missed more games in the last month than Walter Payton has missed in his 13-year career. Payton, whose retirement becomes effective whenever the Bears’ season ends, fantasized this week about ending it in the Super Bowl:

“Three seconds left in the game. We’re on the 20-yard line. We’re down by one touchdown. I run the ball in for a touchdown, and we end up winning the game. I run into the end zone, throw the ball down and then I just fly off.”

He grinned and added, “Shoooo,” as a sound effect, with a little skyward gesture.

Williams also has a fantasy. He would like to be the first black quarterback ever to play in a Super Bowl because of what it would mean “for black America,” he said.

But the fact is that Williams has started only two NFL games since he left Tampa Bay for the United States Football League after the ’82 season, and those were losses to the Rams and Atlanta this season.

Otherwise, he has come off the bench three times to pull games out for the erratic Jay Schroeder, which is why Gibbs gave him the assignment against the Bears.

Also, a rash of injuries among running backs, receivers and offensive linemen have compounded the quarterback problem.

Neither McMahon nor Williams played when the Redskins knocked the Bears out of the playoffs in a similar match of division champions at Soldier Field a year ago, 27-13.

The temperature was 40 degrees but Doug Flutie, now with New England, played quarterback for the Bears that day. Hampton referred to the 5-9 Flutie as “that small, fawn-like creature.”

Said Ditka: “I know one thing. We won’t have a little guy to blame if we don’t win.”

Besides swapping playoff wins the last two years, these teams have several reasons for not liking one another, some real and some manufactured for the occasion.

Ditka this week heard that Redskin defensive end Dexter Manley had called him a bum on his radio show for throwing gum at a female San Francisco fan last month.

Ditka responded on his radio show by saying Manley had the IQ of a grapefruit.

Manley denied calling Ditka a bum, but the Bears coined a nickname for him, anyway: Sunkist.

In appreciation, Manley promised to bring a case of grapefruit to the game.

Frozen, no doubt.

NFC Notes

Home teams have won 49 NFL playoff games and lost 23 since 1979. . . . Mike Ditka has assigned speedster Willie Gault to join Dennis Gentry as a kickoff return tandem, and Gault also will play safety on Chicago kickoffs. . . . Walter Payton will retire with 10 NFL records, including a career rushing total of 16,664 yards. . . . The cold weather could affect each team’s ability to hang on to the ball, Ditka said. The Bears were last in NFL turnover ratio at minus-20. . . . Ditka hopes for better protection for Jim McMahon from an offensive line anchored by tackle Jim Covert, who has been out since November with a sprained ankle. Covert will play opposite defensive end Dexter (Sunkist) Manley. . . . The Redskins said that strong safety Alvin Walton, who has been hampered by a sprained right ankle, participated in all drills Thursday and Friday and should be ready. Walton is the Redskins’ leading tackler. . . . The status of tight end Clint Didier (groin) and reserve running back Keith Griffin (thigh) remained unclear. Each missed the final game with injuries, and Joe Gibbs said he would wait until as long as he could before deciding whether to activate them. . . . With Neal Anderson, Payton’s heir apparent, out of action, neither team has an outside running threat. . . . The Bears have five Pro Bowl selections: center Jay Hilgenberg, defensive tackle Steve McMichael, linebackers Wilber Marshall and Mike Singletary and strong safety Dave Duerson. The Redskins have wide receiver Gary Clark, defensive end Charles Mann and cornerback Darrell Green.