Ryan won players’ hearts by demanding they be perfect savages

Buddy Ryan didn’t care if people liked him.

That single overarching quality enabled him to immerse himself in the minutiae of defensive football and feel no burden whatsoever over possible hurt feelings, wounded egos, broken bones or whiny, soft players who didn’t like being called by their numbers or physical characteristics, such as “Fatso.”

That name, indeed, was what Ryan called rookie William “The Refrigerator” Perry back in the Bears’ Super Bowl year of 1985. Oh, and Ryan didn’t like rookies — even slender ones — anyway.

Why, he didn’t even like future Hall of Fame middle linebacker Mike Singletary early on, something Singletary has said hurt him deeply at first.

There were times when Buddy (ironic nickname for a guy named James David, huh?) didn’t seem to like anybody. Nobody, that is, except his defensive starters when they played perfectly.

And it was that demand for perfection in the reckless, taunting, dangerous, impossible schemes Ryan came up with that made the Bears’ defense so ferocious and nullifying and loyal. It was the achievement of that perfection that made Buddy’s players respect and ultimately, in a very macho way, love him. He showed them what they could achieve, and they did.

Maybe you saw Singletary cry in the recent ESPN ‘‘30 for 30’’ documentary, ‘‘The ’85 Bears,’’ directed by Jason Hehir. That was one tough man shedding tears over his old coach, tears of respect and appreciation.

“Mike was so kind, so caring, so affectionate with Buddy, it blew me away,” Hehir told me Tuesday of Singletary’s visit to Ryan’s farm last summer. “Their day together changed the entire trajectory of the film.”

Ryan died Tuesday in Shelbyville, Kentucky, where he had retired years ago to be with his race horses at his sprawling farm. In recent years, strokes had slowed and nearly silenced him, and that gave his former players and even former Bears coach Mike Ditka a chance to assess what the ornery defensive genius had meant to them.

Ditka, often at odds with Buddy, has been very clear about his developed respect for the man, saying Ryan was the catalyst behind the Bears’ march to the Super Bowl championship.

“The ’85 Bears would not have been the ’85 Bears without Buddy Ryan,” Ditka said in a radio interview. “There’s no question, we won the Super Bowl because of our defense. You’d have to be a fool to say otherwise.”

Ryan’s “46” defense, named for head-hunting safety Doug Plank’s number, was all about gambling with a loaded hand of cards. Players such as Dan Hampton and Wilber Marshall and Richard Dent and Gary Fencik and, of course, Singletary, were so talented that the Bears’ “D” could attack like savages without leaving weaknesses anywhere. Nothing was going to last beyond a few seconds. The carnage was nearly instantaneous. Good luck on those five- and seven-step drops, quarterbacks!

Buddy had left an early indication of his bloodthirstiness when he was with the New York Jets as an assistant in the 1960s for their lone Super Bowl win.

“It got mean, cruel,” former Jets defensive end Gerry Philbin told the New York Times of Ryan’s defense. “I’ve never seen anyone better at bringing the animal out of you. If you didn’t hit as hard as he wanted, he’d humiliate you in front of everyone. Guys like me loved him, though.”

That’s football, a hurting game with pain at its heart.

It’s a game Buddy Ryan loved. It’s a game that, in its primitive, emotional way, loved him back more than he’ll ever know.

Follow me on Twitter @ricktelander.

Email: rtelander@suntimes.com