The '85 Bears: We Were the Greatest by Mike Ditka, Rick Telander Page A

end? But Buddy believed in those whistle drills for his guys. They hated them, but they never, ever quit, because they knew the reason for doing them. The defensive guys were as tough at the end of games as they were on the opening series. They were in shape. Buddy had their total attention and total respect.
    As a coach, it was never about me. I had a bad temper and I got crazed at times, but what I wanted was to win. And when a team wins, everybody wins. It’s about challenging the other team, doing everything you can with every bone in your body, because losing is rotten. When I got traded from the Eagles to the Cowboys, I went from being a pretty good individual player to being a team player, because I realized my value was not in catching 60 passes a year—they had guys to do that. What they needed from me was to angle block, pass block, take out linebackers for the runners behind me like Calvin Hill or Duane Thomas or Walt Garrison or Dan Reeves, whoever was carrying the ball. I understood how important I was to the team, not how important I was to myself. That Super Bowl championship ring the Cowboys won in 1971, when we beat Miami 24–3, sure felt good on my finger.
    I suppose, right from the get go, teamwork and foresight by other people were part of my pro career. In college I’d played both ways, and the teams that wanted me—Washington, Pittsburgh, and San Francisco—were going to make me play linebacker. But the Bears took me, and the Old Man said, “You’re a tight end.” Did anyone know what a tight end was back then? Not really.
    The whole idea of a big guy in close catching a lot of passes was kind of new. We played the Eagles in 1961, and a linebacker named Chuck Weber grabbed me and threw me down. He lined up right over me and forced me outside, and I couldn’t do anything, and then he’d force me in, and the middle linebacker would knock me on my ass. Sometimes both of them would pound me, hold me down. I told Halas, “Those guys are holding me, Coach! Pushing me in, out—I can’t do anything.”
    He and Luke Johnsos—the wide receivers coach, but really the offensive coordinator, even though we didn’t have those titles back then—discussed this, and then Halas said to me, “Flex out two to five yards. Put the outside guy on an island. See what he does with that.”
    So I flex out on some of the pass plays and some of the runs, almost like a slot. What happens when I run a slant now? If I’m blocking the linebacker on a run, he’s already out of the play. He’s not gonna be a factor. We did it, and it worked. I mean why run through someone when you can run around them? Well, okay, sometimes you just gotta knock the crap out of a guy, because it is football, and kicking ass is fun. But how manygreat players are you going to intimidate?
    You think you could intimidate Chuck Bednarik? Hah! Break his arm off and he’d throw it at you. How are you going to intimidate Ronnie Lott? Or Dan Hampton? Or Mike Singletary or Walter Payton? You might beat them, but you’re not going to intimidate them, not because they’re scared of what you’re doing. Hell no. You beat the yolk out of people. But you outsmart them, too.
    I had run-ins with guys like the Packers’ Ray Nitschke, that bald guy who tried to tear my head off constantly. I had run-ins with a lot of great players. I hit them high, I hit them low—and they hit me that way, too. Bill Pellington, the Colts’ linebacker, was wearing my ass out one game. He was slugging me, and I was slugging him. And finally I ended up with this cloth thing on my arm with a hunk of lead at the end, like a freaking weapon. I ran to the official and said, “That sshole’s trying to kill me with a chunk of lead!”
    The ref grabbed it out of my hand and said, “Gimme that, you idiot. It’s my flag!” He threw it at us and it hit my arm. I was so embarrassed.
    Pellington looked at me and said, “Ditka, I don’t need lead to beat your sorry