1985 Bears Coverage: Duerson to fight for no Bell prize

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.

Duerson to fight for no Bell prize

Brian Hewitt

Originally published Jan. 31, 1986

Bear strong safety Dave Duerson is already preparing for Todd Bell’s return. He’s prepared to fight for what he believes he has earned.

Earlier this week an NFC assistant coach broached the subject of Duerson playing free safety in Sunday’s Pro Bowl. That was fine with Duerson. “I’m just here to have fun,” he told the coach.

Duerson knows Bell’s return would necessitate moving back to free safety. “That would be an easier move for me than it would be for Todd,” he said. “Todd’s a strong safety. Me, on the other hand, I’m a free safety converted to strong.”

But the Bears already have Gary Fencik, coming off one of his better seasons, at free safety. Duerson respects that. But he’s in no mood to compromise.

“I wouldn’t make life easy,” he said, looking ahead to the 1986 season. “If it does come down to that, I wouldn’t settle for nickel defenses. No way in the world I would settle for standing on the sidelines and going in on specified situations. I couldn’t handle it.”

Duerson had to settle for passing down duties for the most of his first two seasons. Then Bell’s holdout season enabled him to become the Bears’ regular strong safety. He responded by leading all NFC strong safeties with five interceptions. His opponents responded by naming him to his first Pro Bowl team.

The man Bear coach Mike Ditka chooses to replace former defensive coordinator Buddy Ryan can only hope he has the luxury of trying to fill two spots with three current or former Pro Bowl safeties.

The Bears don’t appear any closer to signing Bell. And the recently concluded Super Bowl season was the last year on the contracts of Fencik and Duerson.

Meanwhile, Duerson, like most of his teammates, will relax.

“The guys are all coming up to me down here and congratulating me,” he said. “I say, `Well, congratulations to you, too.’ Then it hit me. What they’re doing is congratulating me for being a member of the Super Bowl champion Chicago Bears. It’s like getting pats on both shoulders.”

Duerson laughed at suggestions the NFL’s rules committee will try to legislate the 46 defense out of existence at its owners’ meeting in two months.

“Our feeling is, `What can they do?’” he said. “We did everything within the rules. It’s just that we play aggressive. We’re not the type of defense that’s just gonna sit back and react. I guess one thing they can do is take away our ability to have free movement before the snap. But that would be taking away from the game.”

Duerson also laughed this year at what he called `generic’ imitations of the 46.

“They other teams would try to line up in our alignment,” he said. “But nobody’s really sure what we’re doing. So they would break back when the ball was snapped and play in 3-4 fashion or 4-3 fashion. That’s not what we’re about.”

And now that Duerson has tasted the Pro Bowl, he’s not about to go back to sampling leftovers.