Word: ditka
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...flashback than a turnaround, a memory of glory in the midst of a 40-year desperation that, almost no matter what happens in New Orleans this Sunday, has probably evaporated for good. If 1963 reached back to 1946 for inspiration, Halas reached back to 1963 for Mike Ditka...
...last brisk assertions before he died in 1983 at the age of 88, Halas retrieved his old tight end from Tom Landry's coaching staff in Dallas and charged Ditka with restoring a mood. When he was a player, Ditka's style had been to pin teammates on the locker-room wall if they neglected to meet his standards. As a coach, he is hard on the furniture. "When the players walked in the first day," recalls Payton, "Mike was standing there with his arms folded. He nodded to [Assistant] Ted Plumb, who started calling roll. I thought...
McMahon's relationship with Ditka recalls Halas' trials 30 years ago with Doug Atkins, the prototype of the freethinking Bear as well as the only player who ever outcussed the old man. "He was undoubtedly the greatest defensive end in football," Halas explained later. "You're not going to throw a championship out the window trying to discipline a guy like that." At one point this season there was some question whether Ditka and McMahon were even talking. "That's ridiculous," Ditka said. "Just the other day I told him on the sidelines, 'Shut up.' " But when the Rams game...
...other Bears think he handles himself like a defensive player, a high compliment in Chicago, for this is eternally a defensive team. Ditka's shutout department is run independently by a straight-talking old ramrod named Buddy Ryan, an Oklahoman partial to cowboy boots and farm hats that say HORIZON SEEDS. In an era when most coaches feel obliged to soothe the players' psyches, Ryan is a link to the past. He took one wide look at "the Refrigerator" last summer and declared the Clemson first rounder to be "a wasted draft choice." But this was not an unusual introduction...
...Bowl safety Todd Bell and the splendid linebacker Al Harris held out for more money this season and have missed the entire festival. Richard Dent, a particularly wanton defensive end, chose to work while he grumbled. Dent threatened to forgo the Super Bowl, but backed down when Ditka seemed inclined to play the game anyway." I'm sick for Todd Bell," says Fencik. "He's the best safety I've ever played with. It's not just a matter of losing two players' talents. It's a matter of--hey, they're part...