Professional Football Researchers Association Forum

There are those who don't give Iron Mike enough credit as a HC, giving more credit for '85 to other factors (Buddy in-particular) instead. His time with the Saints, fair or not, can strengthen such notion. If not thinking he should get more credit, I personally IMO think he should get no less credit than Buddy, great scouting, etc for his success in Chi-town. Dallas's run of greatness in the Landry Era pretty much ended at the same time that Mike was no longer an assistant (another CC-appearance in '82 then no more playoff wins after that). Whether the run would have ended in the same fashion with or without him as an assistant, this "better assistant or HC" may still make for a worthy-enough argument. Thoughts?

I think Ditka had the right personality for that Bears team at that time so in essence he was a good coach for that group of players in the '84 and '85 seasons. However the mismanagement of the team in the following years I think largely falls on his shoulders. The QB position was handled poorly, several key players became disgruntled and then left. Though he obviously wouldn't have been the one who would be able to pay the players the money they wanted he himself seemed to be more of a detriment to the team than a positive. For instance the players mention how he would tell them that they needed to stop doing all this advertising and commercials and then they would see him on the tv getting some advertisement for himself.

With a proper head coach there shouldn't have been any reason why that team couldn't be standing right a long side the '49ers and Giants during the following five years and potentially taken a Super Bowl trophy away from one of those teams. They were the youngest team in the league in '85 and this was before the salary cap era.

lastcat3 wrote:I think Ditka had the right personality for that Bears team at that time so in essence he was a good coach for that group of players in the '84 and '85 seasons. However the mismanagement of the team in the following years I think largely falls on his shoulders. The QB position was handled poorly, several key players became disgruntled and then left. Though he obviously wouldn't have been the one who would be able to pay the players the money they wanted he himself seemed to be more of a detriment to the team than a positive. For instance the players mention how he would tell them that they needed to stop doing all this advertising and commercials and then they would see him on the tv getting some advertisement for himself.

With a proper head coach there shouldn't have been any reason why that team couldn't be standing right a long side the '49ers and Giants during the following five years and potentially taken a Super Bowl trophy away from one of those teams. They were the youngest team in the league in '85 and this was before the salary cap era.

It became apparent by 1987 that McMahon was not going to be the permanent solution at QB, and Ditka had so many different choices at QB (including rookie Doug Flutie in 1986, who barely got a cup of coffee in Chicago before he was sent off to New England during the 87 season) that he let the problem fester until the Bears window of opportunity as a dynasty had closed after the 1988 season when the team started breaking up. Perhaps it was felt that because McMahon was so popular that you couldn't replace him, but Ditka always seemed to be the kind of guy who made the gut decision regardless of how anybody felt (such as the drafting of Ricky Williams). When it was too late to fix the situation, McMahon was traded away.

Mike Ditka was the right guy in the right place at the right time in Chicago in 1985. A lot of other coaches would have won the Super Bowl with that team, but I don't know if that team would have been quite so dominating as they were under him. I think Wayne Fontes would have won the Super Bowl with that 85 Bears team, which says a lot since I think Fontes is the worst coach I have seen who has had a career of nearly ten years or so. I think Bill Peterson would have at least made the playoffs with the 85 Bears team, he probably would have went 9-7 which would have been enough to win that division.

Watching the documentaries that have been done about the '85 Bears in recent years there sure is a lot of blaming that goes on. Lots of times when you see documentaries about past great teams in the pros and college they stick up for eachother and if there is any blame to be made they often blame outside forces. Not so with that mid '80's Bears franchise. They like to put blame on other players (coaches) on the team.

That Bears team under Ditka was probably one of the more disfunctional teams the nfl has had. Then again that might of had a large part to due with Ryan as it seems the places he went afterward turned into a mess as well.

lastcat3 wrote:Watching the documentaries that have been done about the '85 Bears in recent years there sure is a lot of blaming that goes on. Lots of times when you see documentaries about past great teams in the pros and college they stick up for eachother and if there is any blame to be made they often blame outside forces. Not so with that mid '80's Bears franchise. They like to put blame on other players (coaches) on the team.

That Bears team under Ditka was probably one of the more disfunctional teams the nfl has had. Then again that might of had a large part to due with Ryan as it seems the places he went afterward turned into a mess as well.

I recall Willie Gault taking a lot of heat from teammates because he was supposedly the key figure in the Super Bowl Shuffle video--which was supposed to be a huge moneymaker. I imagine it was, but the players were expecting much more than they received, which meant that Gault was going to catch hell.

BD Sullivan wrote:

lastcat3 wrote:Watching the documentaries that have been done about the '85 Bears in recent years there sure is a lot of blaming that goes on. Lots of times when you see documentaries about past great teams in the pros and college they stick up for eachother and if there is any blame to be made they often blame outside forces. Not so with that mid '80's Bears franchise. They like to put blame on other players (coaches) on the team.

That Bears team under Ditka was probably one of the more disfunctional teams the nfl has had. Then again that might of had a large part to due with Ryan as it seems the places he went afterward turned into a mess as well.

I recall Willie Gault taking a lot of heat from teammates because he was supposedly the key figure in the Super Bowl Shuffle video--which was supposed to be a huge moneymaker. I imagine it was, but the players were expecting much more than they received, which meant that Gault was going to catch hell.

A few of those 85 Bears got rich quick in advertising and books, as an unprecedented number of books quickly came out in the wake of their Super Bowl win. The same happened even more with the 86 Giants when they won, which was kinda expected, being New York and all, (the Mets won the World Series that year and there were a lot of books published about the 86 Mets players also) but the glut of these sports-related books quickly went away soon after. Future sports books were reserved more for the Joe Montanas and not the Phil McConkeys.

The players should have thought out the logic of selling the Super Bowl Shuffle video out a little better, in that how many people are going to shell out money to buy a VHS of a music video that was playing on MTV and pro football programs and pregame shows repeatedly? If you have a VCR and can record it, why would you buy it? Also, by March and April, the distributors won't be able to give any leftover stock away. Perhaps if they came out and said all profits would be donated to a charity such as the United Way, people might have bought it to feel good about the donation aspect of it.

What should Ditka have done differently with the QB position? They transitioned from McMahon to Harbaugh. Should he have kept Flutie around? Would that have won titles for the Bears over Montana's Niners?

Bryan wrote:What should Ditka have done differently with the QB position? They transitioned from McMahon to Harbaugh. Should he have kept Flutie around? Would that have won titles for the Bears over Montana's Niners?

If I were Ditka in 1986, I would have gone with a Woodstrock system like Shula did in Miami in the early 80's, making Flutie the starter and bringing in McMahon if either Flutie was ineffective or they were down and needed a quick TD or some motivation. McMahon in 1985 was above average but not great; he was a weak link on the team and if the Bears wanted to become a dynasty he was the place to start to fix it to go to the next level. I would have definitely have kept Fuller as the third string QB, gotten rid of Tomczak and never drafted Harbaugh in 1987 (maybe opting for Christian Okoye), and let the McFlutie situation work itself out to see if either Flutie could indeed take over the starting job or if McMahon could stay healthy and keep his head in the game, all the while bringing in Fuller in blowout games to get him some snaps to keep him ready to go in case McFlutie didn't work out. I think this system would have worked for a couple years to get Flutie the NFL experience to take over the job on his own and become the greatest QB in Bears history. I think they could have won at least one more Super Bowl, maybe two, in the 1986-1988 window. After that, it is hard to say. If they had indeed drafted Okoye instead of Harbaugh, a backfield tandem of Okoye and Neal Anderson would have been absolutely deadly, especially with a running QB like Flutie.

I've always believed that Doug Flutie would have been a Hall of Fame QB in the NFL if somebody had only given him a chance. He had to go to Canada to prove all those NFL scouts and head coaches wrong.

Rupert Patrick wrote:If I were Ditka in 1986, I would have gone with a Woodstrock system like Shula did in Miami in the early 80's, making Flutie the starter and bringing in McMahon if either Flutie was ineffective or they were down and needed a quick TD or some motivation. McMahon in 1985 was above average but not great; he was a weak link on the team and if the Bears wanted to become a dynasty he was the place to start to fix it to go to the next level. I would have definitely have kept Fuller as the third string QB, gotten rid of Tomczak and never drafted Harbaugh in 1987 (maybe opting for Christian Okoye), and let the McFlutie situation work itself out to see if either Flutie could indeed take over the starting job or if McMahon could stay healthy and keep his head in the game, all the while bringing in Fuller in blowout games to get him some snaps to keep him ready to go in case McFlutie didn't work out. I think this system would have worked for a couple years to get Flutie the NFL experience to take over the job on his own and become the greatest QB in Bears history. I think they could have won at least one more Super Bowl, maybe two, in the 1986-1988 window.

I don't think you can criticize Ditka for not benching his veteran QB who just won the Super Bowl and went to the Pro Bowl (Jim McMahon) in favor of a rookie QB (Doug Flutie). That would have been historically unprecedented.

Bryan wrote:

Rupert Patrick wrote:If I were Ditka in 1986, I would have gone with a Woodstrock system like Shula did in Miami in the early 80's, making Flutie the starter and bringing in McMahon if either Flutie was ineffective or they were down and needed a quick TD or some motivation. McMahon in 1985 was above average but not great; he was a weak link on the team and if the Bears wanted to become a dynasty he was the place to start to fix it to go to the next level. I would have definitely have kept Fuller as the third string QB, gotten rid of Tomczak and never drafted Harbaugh in 1987 (maybe opting for Christian Okoye), and let the McFlutie situation work itself out to see if either Flutie could indeed take over the starting job or if McMahon could stay healthy and keep his head in the game, all the while bringing in Fuller in blowout games to get him some snaps to keep him ready to go in case McFlutie didn't work out. I think this system would have worked for a couple years to get Flutie the NFL experience to take over the job on his own and become the greatest QB in Bears history. I think they could have won at least one more Super Bowl, maybe two, in the 1986-1988 window.

I don't think you can criticize Ditka for not benching his veteran QB who just won the Super Bowl and went to the Pro Bowl (Jim McMahon) in favor of a rookie QB (Doug Flutie). That would have been historically unprecedented.

While that might be true but there is also no denying that Ditka deserves a lot of criticism for what the Bears franchise ended up turning into. They had everything set to make a multiple Super Bowl run but they allowed a bunch of infighting and a qb situation that couldn't be figured out keep that from happening. Ditka couldn't handle the egos (probably because he had just as big of an ego as the players did) and he couldn't figure out a way to develop proper depth at the qb position where he knew he had a fragile starter.