Read The '85 Bears: We Were the Greatest Online
Authors: Mike Ditka,Rick Telander
The '85 Bears: We Were the Greatest (9 page)
“That’s it!” I screamed. “You’re done!”
He looks at me and says, “Well, you never liked me anyway.”
“Don’t LIKE you?! You #%&*!@+!!%—!—”
I was going to kill him. Right there. Tear his flesh off like a jackal. I was so mad my neck veins had veins. Everybody was holding me back. I mean, he did the same thing!
Years later we were playing the Vikings up at that indoor roller rink they have in Minneapolis, and Jim Harbaugh was my quarterback. I said before the game, “It’s gonna be loud out there. No audibles. Your linemen can’t hear. I’m not going to put you in position to call a play that won’t work. Okay? Got it?” Harbaugh nodded. Everybody nodded.
In the game we’re beating the Vikings, 20–0, and I have a fly route to Gault called. Up the
side-line. Harbaugh audibles to a hitch. Interception! We lose the game 21–20. There are photos that ran after that where I’m getting ready to strangle Harbaugh. I was wrong on the sideline, and I’ve calmed down through the years, and two wrongs don’t make a right. BUT I DON’T UNDERSTAND WHEN PEOPLE DO THINGS LIKE THAT! Call the damn play!
Now the thing about McMahon was he was out there on his own, too, and he’d drive you crazy with audibles. But he could read a defense, he was a master at seeing the field, and he could sense the blitz.
So we had a chance with Jimmy Mac. Thing was, would the little turd survive? In 1984 he missed seven games plus the playoffs with everything from a hairline fracture of his hand to a bad back to that kidney thing.
In 1984 when we played the Raiders, it was about the most brutal game I’d ever seen. I told my players we had to beat them, it was the only way to get to the next level, to prove to ourselves we belonged. The Raiders knocked out Jim, could have killed him with that kidney injury. And we knocked out their quarterback. Guys were getting carried off the field left and right. I think the Raiders even had to put Ray Guy, their punter, in at quarterback. But we won 17–6 over the mighty Raiders. Our defense kicked ass. Our record was 7–3, but McMahon was done for the year, and we couldn’t sustain. You gotta have a quarterback. I realized that.
McMahon was back now, and I prayed he would last. I know I was frothing at the mouth half of the time early in my career. He annoyed me so much—I swear he would wear stupid clothes or say crazy things on the sideline or to the press or grab the mike and blabber on the team plane or go out and get plastered, just to make me boil.
But I knew this. If you’re going to be the bully, you have to beat the bully. And the bullies were everywhere.
And we needed this crazy quarterback. We were 1–0, just getting started.
Electric Gault Lights a Charge
F
or most of the first quarter against Washington, the Bears looked like anything but the high-powered bunch that had blind-sided the Vikings in the last game. They were out-gained 141–2, and Walter Payton was on the way to a day that would give him 6 total yards on seven carries, one of the worst days of his career. They finished the afternoon with their fewest rushing yards, passing yards, and first downs of the season, and they heard a smattering of boos. Jim McMahon was 0-for-4 and threw an interception in the first quarter.
But they finished the day 4–0 after handing the Redskins their worst beating in nearly 25 years.
What happened was another turning-point play, again involving Willie Gault, as it had on the first McMahon miracle touchdown in Minnesota. With the Bears trailing 10–0 after a Mark Moseley field goal early in the second quarter, Gault took a Washington kickoff at his own 1-yard line and turned loose some of the legendary speed that made him a unique weapon for a unique team.
His touchdown sparked a 31-point blitz in the quarter as the defense completely shut down Joe Theismann’s offense. After the Gault touchdown, the Redskins managed a total of one yard in their next three possessions, leaving the Bears with field position that set them up to score on drives of 14, 22, and 36 yards. McMahon passed to Dennis McKinnon 14 yards for a touchdown, followed that with a 10-yard TD pass to Emery Moorehead, then caught one of his own on a 13-yard heave from Payton.
Mike Richardson and Gary Fencik nail Art Monk, who coughs up the ball.
Jim McMahon grabs a touchdown pass from Walter Payton in the second quarter.
What the game represented was the third time in four weeks that the Bears had rallied to win after trailing by more than seven points, and the result gave the Bears the NFL lead in scoring. The Redskins outgained them 376–250, but the Bears were beginning to dominate offensively as much with McMahon’s passing as with Payton’s running.
McMahon threw a third touchdown pass in the third quarter, finding Payton for a 33-yard score, and Dennis Gentry ended the scoring with a one-yard dive.
Washington had been a critical game in the 1984 playoffs, in which the Bears discovered and began to believe that they belonged on the same field with some of the NFL’s best. Now they had gone a step further and confirmed that they were one of the NFL’s best in their own right.
Chicago 45, Washington 10
SEPT. 29, 1985, AT SOLDIER FIELD
31-point 2nd quarter turns deficit into win
Willie Gault’s 99-yard kickoff return for a touchdown. The play kick-started the Bears on a 31-point second-quarter outburst.
The Bears scored on five consecutive possessions in the 2nd quarter.
Walter Payton, who gained only six yards rushing, bangs off a pair of defenders.
DAVE DUERSON
No. 22, safety
“M
y dad is my hero. My dad’s decorated—two Bronze Stars from World War II, fought in the 3
rd
Army Signal Corps directly under Patton. He spent a lot of his time behind enemy lines.”
“So when I went to work for Buddy Ryan, it was like a joke. Buddy Ryan and Mike Ditka couldn’t intimidate me. Buddy certainly had attitude, but his was self-serving. Very much so. You were either one of his guys, or you weren’t. In my case, I wasn’t.”
“Buddy just absolutely hated my guts. Hated my guts. I called my dad when I first got drafted and I told him, ‘Dad, I didn’t graduate from college to go through this.’ My dad believes that every male child should do two years in the armed services. I tell you that as a precursor. So he says to me, ‘Well, it sounds to me like you’re in the army.’ So I said, ‘OK, Dad, I’ll talk to you later.’ Short phone call.”
“Every day Buddy would tell me he was waiting for me to screw up one time. So I played through that whole season with the defensive coordinator telling me that he was rooting for me to screw up so he could get Todd Bell back. So I became an All-Pro myself.”
“I think [Patriots quarterback] Tony Eason knew [Super Bowl XX] was over the second series. Absolutely. He picked himself off the turf on each play of the first series and the second series. Their offensive line couldn’t handle our guys. With all the things we were doing at the line of scrimmage, we were calling out their plays before they could execute them.”
“I was projected to go to Parcells with the 10
th
pick in the first round. He took Terry Kinnard instead. I was talking about the importance of law school. It was never just football for me. It cost me two rounds in the draft.”
“I think we should’ve won three Super Bowls. But they started shipping guys out.”
