Doug Plank: Buddy Ryan’s innovation, simplicity made the 46 work

Former Bears safety Doug Plank — the “namesake” of Buddy Ryan’s 46 defense — remembers the moment when it clicked.

“It wasn’t working initially,” Plank said of Ryan’s signature defense. “In 1981 in a Monday Night [Football] game, we got embarrassed by the Lions [48-17 at the Silverdome], because we weren’t getting the defenses in time. We were shuttling in plays by players running on and off the field. We just didn’t get the plays in in time and we lost badly to the Lions.

“The next week we played Dan Fouts and that Air Coryell offense, which led the National Football League and we spanked them. We took it to them. They had never seen anything like that. We were always in his face. We were covering everyone. It just went to show you that once everybody got on the same page, it was the most innovative thing that I had ever seen in my life.”

In fact, just six days after getting waxed by the Lions in a loss that dropped the Bears to 1-6, the Bears’ defense that was torched by Eric Hipple for four touchdowns and no interceptions, throttled the great Fouts and the Chargers — who came in averaging nearly 34 points a game — in a 20-17 overtime victory at Soldier Field. Fouts was 13-of-43 for 295 yards, two touchdowns and two interceptions and a 52.0 passer rating — the second-lowest percentage of his Hall of Fame career and the lowest rating of a Pro Bowl season — in a 20-17 Bears overtime victory at Soldier Field.

What happened in six days?

“At the time of the Monday night game when we played the Lions, we were sending a player in from the sidelines. You run 50 yards [onto the field] and you’re excited and energetic and now you have to give the [play call] — and these were long-winded defensive plays — with a mouthpiece in your mouth. I think it was Mike Singletary coming in and out with the plays. By the time he got out there he was talking a language I didn’t understand.

“The next week [against the Chargers] we went with all hand signals. And we were on automatic front coverages. That was a very simple hand signal that Buddy would sent in and I still remember it. It’s branded on my brain. When he sent that signal in to me, immediately the signal was conveyed to everybody else and we go, ‘OK.’ Before they even came out of their huddle, we were ready and prepared.”

And so began a steady ascent to greatness, as the Bears added more talented players to Ryan’s defense, that culminated with a Super Bowl destruction that capped one of the greatest defensive seasons in NFL history.

Buddy Ryan, who passed away at 82 on Tuesday, made a name for himself in the NFL as a defensive assistant on the Jets’ 1968 Super Bowl III championship team and the Vikings’ 1976 NFC championship team that lost to the Raiders in Super Bowl XI. But his 46 defense with the Bears left an indelible mark on NFL history and created a legacy that will live forever. He was the star of a defense that had three Hall of Famers. And he earned every bit of the credit, with the innovative approach that combined with a Jim Finks-led talent influx to strike gold in the biggest way.

“No coach I ever had in my life ever took the game plan and turned it over to the team — that was what the 46 defense did,” said Plank, who joined the Bears in 1975, three years before Ryan was hired in 1978. “It allowed the defense to change and interact and interpret what the offense was doing — by formation, by play selection. He would give us a game plan of defenses and coverages that we would memorize and once the game happened, we were on auto-pilot.

“In fact, one of the calls was “automatic front coverage,” which meant according to their formation we would line up in an automatic front and an automatic defense on every play. So he almost had it by remote-control. He would still send in plays periodically, but he was innovative.”

Plank’s manic, aggressive, hard-hitting playing style endeared him to Ryan. But when Ryan named the 46 defense after Plank’s No. 46, it was more for simplicity than the honor it has become.

“He was naming so many things after so many players, when he mentioned it that day, I didn’t think like, ‘Wow, that’s really special. I really appreciate that, coach,’” Plank said. “Because he had blitzes and coverages and fronts named after other players. He just made it easier because rather than give them funky, football names — like blue and red and all those colors — he just named them after guys, or adjectives. If you heard a certain adjective, you knew he was referring to you.”

And to Plank, that’s the essence of Buddy Ryan and the 46 defense. “Buddy simplified things. I give him so much credit for that,” Plank said. “He gave us something that was so intricate and he made it so simple.”

Though Plank was in on the ground floor of the 46 defense, he was not around for its crowning moment. The hard-hitting safety was cut after the 1982 season — when he suffered numbness in the opener and missed the rest of that strike-shortened season. But thanks to Buddy Ryan, the “46 defense” is a lasting badge of honor for Doug Plank.

“Buddy changed my life with the whole 46 thing,” Plank said. “I went from being Doug Plank, pro safety who played for the Chicago Bears to wherever I went in the NFL, I became the 46 defense. Wherever I went, to anybody that had any NFL connections, they always associate me with Buddy Ryan and the 46 defense.”