Bryan Cox’s Bears highlight? ‘Jordan winking at my ex-wife’

HOUSTON — Asked what he remembered about playing linebacker for the Bears from 1996-97, Falcons assistant Bryan Cox smiled.

“Michael Jordan winking at my ex-wife when we went to the game,” the loquacious defensive line coach said Wednesday.

Dave Wannstedt took Cox and his then-wife to the Bulls game before he signed, and Jordan winked before a free throw. Cox didn’t mind.

“That’s MJ,” Cox said. “That would be like Oprah winking at me. The two best things about Chicago.”

It certainly wasn’t the Bears, who went 7-9 in 1996 and 4-12 in 1997.

“They were more concerned with getting the first pick in the draft,” he said. “I feel like that was two years of my life that I wasted, where it wasn’t productive because I wasn’t with an organization that was trying to win the national, or world, championship.”