1985 Bears Coverage: Ditka shrugs off Ryan

Every day of the 2015 Chicago Bears season, Chicago Sun-Times Sports will revisit its coverage 30 years ago during the 1985 Bears’ run to a Super Bowl title.

Ditka shrugs off Ryan

Kevin Lamb

Originally published Jan. 30, 1986

It frosted Mike Ditka that anyone could even suggest the Bears would have trouble getting along without Buddy Ryan.

They’ll do fine, he said yesterday.

Just as they managed quite nicely without two defensive starters who held out all season.

They’ll also do fine without the 46 as their primary defense, Ditka strongly indicated.

“We’ve got good players,” he said. “Whether we’re playing one form of defense or another, we’ll do it well.

“It’ll be a new dimension of Bear football. I think everybody will like it.”

Ditka said he would not rush to replace Ryan, who vacated the Bears’ defensive coordinator post to become the Eagles’ head coach. He said three weeks would be soon enough.

He said he would be “very open-minded” about promoting defensive backfield coach Jim LaRue or defensive line coach Dale Haupt – but because they’re good coaches, not because they would keep Ryan’s system intact.

The important thing won’t change, Ditka said. “We’re going to preserve what’s here because we have the players. This system’s only as good as the players who can play it.”

And they can play in any system?

“You’re doggone right. And play it well.”

Ryan said Ditka probably would make the Bears a 3-4 defensive team. “That’s what Mike will want to do,” he said.

It could happen with the same starters, since Ditka has expressed interest in making Richard Dent an outside linebacker. Or it could be a way to use linebacker Ron Rivera, the second-round 1984 draft choice, instead of Steve McMichael, an excellent defensive tackle who is undergoing knee surgery soon.

Ryan said a 3-4 would reduce the effectiveness of Mike Singletary, a two-time defensive player of the year at middle linebacker. Bear players and opposing coaches have said the 46 defense makes the Bears’ whole greater than the sum of its parts.

Ditka disagreed. He didn’t point it out, but people made the same dire forecast for middle linebacker Jack Lambert when the Steelers went from a 4-3 defense to a 3-4.

“Our personnel’s capable of doing anything they want to do,” Ditka said. “If they want to sit back and feel sorry for themselves, they can do that very well, too. If they want to get on with the challenge and the opportunity and the excitement of trying to get back to a Super Bowl in 1987, it can be done.”

He implied the players sold themselves short when they called Ryan the MVP of the defense. With a different defensive system, Ditka said, “I believe we’d have won the Super Bowl.”

Ditka kept using the word “challenge.” He appeared eager to prove the Bears could play great defense without Ryan, whom George Halas retained a few weeks before he hired Ditka four years ago.

Ryan’s departure also gives the Bears another chance to shrug off adversity, as they did so often to reach this 18-1 championship season. It keeps things interesting. “Platteville training camp will be a little more exciting next year,” Ditka said.

If Ryan wants to take other Bear assistants with him, Ditka said he would have to wait a week. LaRue and Haupt were in New Orleans yesterday for the scouting combine’s evaluation of draft prospects. Ditka planned to join them today.

The session amounts to a coaching convention, so Ditka probably will interview candidates to replace Ryan – at least informally. The decision will be his, although he said he did not care who chose the next defensive coordinator.

“It could be a collection of 16 housewives from Orland Park,” Dita said. “We don’t really care as long as we get the right one.”

Ditka said his phone “has not stopped ringing” since Ryan’s announcement Tuesday. “Names are going to come up,” he said. “A million of them. There’s a lot of good people in this game.”

The only name he mentioned was that of Richie Petitbon, his former Bear teammate and Washington’s defensive coordinator. He said league policy would not allow an assistant coach to change teams without getting a promotion.

That leaves two categories: lower-level assistants, such as Jets linebacker coach Dan Radakovich, 49ers defensive backfield coach Ray

Rhodes or Raiders defensive line coach Earl Leggett, a former Bear – or recently fired coaches, such as former defensive coordinators Wade Phillips of New Orleans or Floyd Peters of St. Louis.

Peters’ background is in 4-3 defense, the others in 3-4. All are well-respected for aggressive styles similar to Ryan’s but not as radical.

“The Bears have played aggressive, challenging defenses in the ’60s, ’50s and ’40s,” Ditka said. “It didn’t start when Buddy came here. It won’t end when Buddy leaves here.”

Dallas assistants will be natural objects of speculation because of Ditka’s background there, but he has said he does not believe in the Cowboys’ flex defense.

Stan Jones would be a natural candidate. He’s a former Ditka teammate on the defensive staff at Denver, which Ditka respects. But he said he had turned down other opportunities because he likes Denver.

“I wouldn’t envy the guy that would come in and follow Ryan,” Jones said.

“He’ll have his work cut out for him,” Ditka said. But he was certain Ryan’s successor could learn enough about the 46 to make it work with the Bears’ players.

“A lot of people thought I’d be looking for the highest building in Chicago to jump off of,” Ditka said. “We’ll make it real well.

“Believe me, we’ll play good. If we can’t play good, we’ll call the commissioner and cancel all our games.”