Mike Ditka and the Chicago Way

Welcome to The Debrief, Box Score’s freewheeling conversation about the sports we love.

Jim Trotter
Jim covered the NFL for The Athletic, ESPN, Sports Illustrated and The San Diego Union-Tribune. He is a Pro Football Hall of Fame voter and a former president of Pro Football Writers of America.

Farrell Evans
Farrell is a Box Score co-founder, former Sports Illustrated golf writer and the executive producer of The Land We Share, a documentary about the intimate bonds between the Shinnecock Hills Golf Club and the Shinnecock Indian Nation.

The NFL said goodbye to one of its true legends this week when Mike Ditka died Oct. 9 in Chicago at age 86. Ditka was a Hall of Fame tight end. As a coach, he led the Chicago Bears to the team’s only Super Bowl victory in 1986. What do you think about Ditka’s legacy and his impact on the NFL?

Jim: When you talk about certain individuals who embody the mindset and culture of a city, Mike Ditka was that guy when you think of him in Chicago, without question. Chicago, broad shoulders, and Mike was that guy, that tough.

I bet you a lot of young people see him as this tough guy chomping on the cigar and all of that, but they don’t realize how he changed the position at tight end. He was the first tight end to ever have 1,000 receiving yards in a season. In his rookie year, he had 12 touchdown catches. Back then, tight ends were basically just glorified offensive linemen. A lot of people don’t realize the impact that he had on the game in that way.

It was also interesting to hear the tributes from players who talked about them. And to me, when I read some of them, I thought about the complexity and the contradiction of we as human beings. Because on the one hand, Jim Harbaugh talks about going into his office as a player and Mike’s sitting there writing out $500 checks to people he doesn’t know because they’re having a hard time and they’ve written to him. And then in the next breath I think of him and his MAGA politics and how impactful in a bad way that was on communities in parts of the country. Everything is not as linear as we may want it to be, and life is a lot more complicated than we want it to be.

But thinking about Mike as a football coach. I grew up in San Francisco following the 49ers. There was that heated rivalry during the Bill Walsh–Mike Ditka period there. So I always kind of smile at Mike, too, because I think about him throwing that big old wad of gum at a 49er fan coming off the field at Candlestick. No question, he was a legend. 

Farrell: When I think about Mike Ditka, I think about that 1985 team that he took to the Super Bowl, and his relationship with Buddy Ryan. It seems crazy now. When Ditka got the job in ’82, Bears owner George Halas told him that he already had a defensive coordinator and Ditka couldn’t do anything about it. 

So, he’s a head coach of a football team and Buddy Ryan is untouchable. All of a sudden, Ditka promises a Super Bowl within three years. You’ve got Mike Singletary there, Gary Fencik, Walter Payton, this nucleus of guys. They went to Super Bowl XX after the 1985 season. I’m 10 years old in ’85, watching the game with my dad. When the Bears blow out the Patriots, the offense picks up Ditka and the defense picks up Buddy Ryan.

But he was a football guy, to Jim’s point. After he left the Bears, New Orleans didn’t go that well. But I think of him as a football coach, an offensive-minded guy who had some solid years, and a Super Bowl champion. I hated the last five or 10 years of his public life with the politics, but Mike Ditka will be remembered as a Bears coach and a great receiving tight end.

If one of your students asked you why Mike Ditka was such a big deal, what would you tell them?

Jim: In part it was because of the way that he played. Not just his style in terms of being a pass-catching tight end, but just his mentality and his toughness. Whatever he did, that always came through. You almost think of him like Dick Butkus on the offensive side of the ball, with that persona. And he carried that through into his coaching. The blowups with players and Buddy Ryan, the way he browbeat Jim Harbaugh one time on the sideline—all those things are legendary.

But then again, when I think of him as a personnel guy, you want to be kind after someone has passed, but the Ricky Williams trade was one of the worst trades in NFL history. He gave up an entire draft and then he gave up a first- and a second-round pick the following year. That wasn’t his forte, but he was given that kind of clout and authority and he chose to make that deal. 

But if my students were to ask me about Mike Ditka, let me just say it this way: He was who he was. He didn’t apologize for it. He was upfront, but he was direct on the field and in life. You know, he was going to do it his way. He was going to say what he felt. He was going to be hard-nosed. And those kind of guys are memorable in a lot of ways.

You’ve covered the league from several vantage points. What do you watch for in Week 5 that tells you which teams are really leading from the top?

Jim: Coaches always had the saying, back when it was a 16-game schedule, that at the quarter mark you kind of start to develop your identity. You kind of start to know who you are. And I think we’re seeing that with clubs even now. There is a reason that it is so difficult to make the playoffs when you start poorly over the first quarter of the season. This is not something you put numbers on necessarily—but I look for a vibe, for lack of a better word, with a team.

Because you can tell when teams have a certain chemistry right after a quarter of the season, when everything is starting to match a little bit, and it may not be perfect, but you see that there is this certain chemistry, and you see that in that there is something special. They have something they can hang their hat on. They know what their identity is. They know how they want to play. And they know how to play that way and how to play that way effectively.

Obviously, you know, you look at health as well. How’s the team handling it, if they are fully healthy or they’re not? For me, it’s just a feel. Are you playing well in all aspects of the game, or some facets of the game you are excelling at, and maybe not others, but you see that you’re getting there, that progress is being made? But more than anything, it’s about a vibe, an identity. Do you have an identity after four games? Because if you don’t know who you are after four games, if you haven’t established who you are after four games, you’re going to have a very difficult time going on and making any sort of impact come December, January, February.

Farrell: It sounds like a cliche, but I want to see teams that are playing what they like to call complementary football, all three phases, where you have teams where the defense is playing solid, the offense is playing solid, they’re getting contributions from special teams. What worries me is if I’m seeing a team that’s getting bailed out every week by the offense or the defense or some lucky special teams play. You know that teams are able to play complementary ball if they’re winning the tough close games. 

When you get in the playoffs, you have better teams, fewer turnovers, fewer dumb penalties, you’re going to have to win close football games. So, I look for complementary football, all three phases, and teams that are not making silly penalties. And then, for lack of a better way of looking at it, somebody who has a quarterback who we can trust to stay healthy. And a lot of teams, that’s just not the case.

Jim: Well, I’m going to say this to you. The reason I use the word vibe and chemistry—I don’t think necessarily all of the top teams right now are playing complementary football. So, when I look at, for instance, a Minnesota, who’s undefeated—if not for that defense, there is no way in hell they would be undefeated, right? But the chemistry among that team is good because they understand who they are. They understand what their strength is. So there is no division there in terms of, "Well, damn, why do we have to carry it every week?"

I look at the Denver Broncos, for instance, at 3-2. That offense is not very good right now, but Vance Joseph and that defense has been carrying the load. And yet there is not any sense of internal strife between offense and defense. They understand what their identity is, and they play to that. At this point, it makes me think back to that Baltimore Ravens team that won the Super Bowl back in 2001, where their offense was terrible, but Ray Lewis and Rod Woodson and those guys said, "We got you.” They knew what their identity was and they played to it. And so that’s the thing I kind of look for at the quarter mark of the season, is about: Do you have an identity? Do you understand what your identity is, and do you play to that? 

To Farrell’s point, there’s no question at some point you’re going to have to get quarterback play in today’s NFL. No doubt about it. But again, you got to know who you are. I look at a team like Kansas City right now. They’ve reshaped their identity a little bit with Kenneth Walker. Now, Patrick Mahomes doesn’t have to carry the load. They don’t have to put the ball up all the time, and he doesn’t have to be Superman. Kenneth Walker has just been tremendous for them so far this year. So, that’s what I look for. Do you have an identity? And do you understand how to lean into that identity for the purposes of winning?

The Chargers are off to a disappointing 0-5 start. They’re dealing with injuries and penalties, and coach Jim Harbaugh has publicly backed offensive coordinator Mike McDaniel. Do you think changes are inevitable for the Chargers?

Farrell: I like Mike McDaniel. He got run out of the building with Miami, and Jim Harbaugh brought him in as a reset for quarterback Justin Herbert. But is Herbert a top-five quarterback? I don’t think so.

Right now, that team is not clicking on any level. And then, like, I watched Herbert on Sunday. The guy was playing his heart out, but he had to scramble his butt off. But even if they had won that game Sunday, I would have still been just as worried, because you got this guy running for his life. And at some point that’s going to end. He’s going to get knocked out of games. 

Do you fire Mike McDaniel at this point? First of all, you’d have to fire him. You can’t take play-calling duties from a guy who’s been a head coach. And if you do that at this point in the season, that’s bad energy, a bad vibe. So I think they’ve got to ride it out. I think the question is, does Jim Harbaugh have the trust of the ownership group that will let him do what he wants to do? Can he have a 4-and-13 season and do it the way he wants to do, and have a good draft? Because not everybody gets that freedom.

Jim: Man, there are a few things to unpack there. Number one, we’re not in disagreement on Justin Herbert. I’ve said this for some time. I think for all of the physical gifts that he has—and they are tremendous—the results don’t necessarily line up with the physical talent in terms of being able to put a team on his shoulders and lead it deep into the playoffs, which is how we judge quarterbacks today. We ask, How can they lift their team? Can they be that rising tide that lifts their team and takes it deep into the playoffs? He has not shown himself to be able to do that, for all of his physical gifts. And again, he has many.

The other thing with Justin Herbert this year, as I see it, is the same as a year ago. Injuries are impacting his ability to perform. That offensive line, for the second straight year, is a sieve because of injuries. A year ago, they lost their two starting tackles. This year they’re juggling things again up front. So those things speak to Justin Herbert’s struggles as well. 

But here’s what I will say about Mike McDaniel. And I don’t believe Jim will make a change in midseason. I think he’ll ride it out, but I think at the end of the year, this is an experiment that is not working. In part because I don’t believe Mike’s offense fits Justin Herbert. Mike’s offense involves a lot of timing and anticipation. That is not Justin Herbert’s strength. As I see it, as I watch him, he’s a guy that likes to see it develop, use his arm talent to get the ball there. 

You go back to Miami, you watch what quarterback Tua Tagovailoa was doing in this offense. A lot of it was anticipation, where the ball would be out before cuts were made. He’s throwing to the spots, trusting that his receivers are going to be there. No. 1, Justin can’t trust his receivers are going to be there, because his receivers haven't been completely healthy all year. But No. 2, I just don’t know that he’s that comfortable throwing to spots as opposed to throwing to players.

So, I don’t think this offense and his skill set, his talents, and the way he sees the game align for this to get a lot better anytime soon. That’s just the way I feel. I may be wrong. They may prove me wrong, but I just haven’t seen anything in five weeks that speaks to a change occurring.

The NFL has seen a quarterback injury wave so far this season. Ravens quarterback Lamar Jackson and Bears quarterback Caleb Williams were out this week, and Commanders quarterback Jayden Daniels was returning from injury. How much does depth at quarterback decide a season now?

Farrell: It has to be everything. Last year, the Denver Broncos had a great season, and they had to play the AFC Championship game with their backup quarterback. The Broncos should have been in the Super Bowl. 

You’ve got to have an experienced guy as your backup quarterback. In today’s league, with a 17-game season, the quarterbacks have to be able to move around out of the pocket and do different things with their legs. If you have a guy that can play a whole 17-game season, and stay fresh and work from a clean pocket for most of his snaps during a game, you’re on a whole another level. I think it’s tough for organizations—when you got to have edge rushers, you got to pay quarterbacks, you got to pay offensive linemen—to say, "I’m going to give $10 or $12 million to a guy who is supposed to be a second stringer, who I don’t really want to play, but I need somebody on that level."

The Raiders did a great job. They drafted Fernando Mendoza, the Heisman Trophy winner from Indiana, and they love him, but they knew he wasn’t ready. So they got Kirk Cousins, and Cousins is going to help the Raiders have a decent season. They may not necessarily go to the playoffs, but he’s a starter. But how do you pay a guy to have that kind of depth?

Jim: What the good teams do is they allocate monies to positions as opposed to players. So that’s why it’s so important for teams to get a rookie quarterback or a young quarterback who is extremely talented, and they’re paying him next to nothing, relatively speaking, because then they can use their financial assets elsewhere to build out that team. 

Farrell’s right. Look, we know that there aren’t 32 good quarterbacks in the NFL. There’s a reason that they’re the highest-paid position in the NFL, because of the value that they bring, and that the rules have been established to allow them to be successful or to have an opportunity for success. So if you don’t have one, it’s very tough. The best you can hope for with a backup is that he’s in for a short time. The ideal situation is that he’s not in at all, but the ideal situation short of that is that he’s in for a very short time. We saw in Minnesota, Kyler Murray didn’t miss a lot of time, relatively speaking. With Caleb Williams, he is out longer than they would like, but we’re talking about a hamstring injury. Especially when you’re going to be playing in Chicago later in the year when it’s cold. You can’t rush that. You can’t put him back on the field early. 

Lamar has had some injuries the last few years, and when you get older and you’re a mobile quarterback, those things start to have an impact on you. And Lamar talked about that after last season, about why some of his numbers were down, and he said he was playing hurt or was injured. So having a veteran backup, no question, is important.

So, for instance, I think back to when Geno Smith was with the Chargers. If they had needed him for a couple of games or three games, I think they might have been fine in years past. But when you talk about a full season, that’s difficult. There are not 32 winning quarterbacks in the NFL. So, whenever you lose one, especially if he is one of the elite ones, you’re going to feel it. Bottom line.

Now that you’re retired, what do you watch differently on a Sunday than you did as a reporter?

Jim: People may not like this answer, but football now is not appointment viewing for me. You know, when I was working, obviously it was appointment viewing. I’m watching as many games as I can, as often as I can. Now, it’s like, what’s the interesting storylines? I’m more interested in storylines than I am in just watching a game.

And when I say storylines, it doesn’t necessarily mean the NFL. At times I’m watching the WNBA playoffs, to be honest with you, because those storylines are more interesting to me than an early season NFL game. Watching the Padres, since I live in San Diego, and the Milwaukee Brewers—those were fascinating playoff games because of the storyline. So, when they went head-to-head with an NFL game early in the year, I’m watching that. What drives me now, in terms of just sports in general, is what are the storylines, what’s interesting, what’s unusual, those sorts of things. It’s no longer just about, “Oh, I’ve got to watch this game because I got to be familiar with what this player is doing or what this team is.” No, that’s not it anymore. And I’m enjoying that, to be honest with you. I really am.

I’m into these WNBA playoffs. I’m telling you right now, I’m into it. If somebody wanted to hire me to come back and cover that, I might have to give it some real consideration, because I’m enjoying what I’m seeing.

Farrell: I’m an NFL guy. I’m watching Thursday night and Sunday and Monday. But I’m watching situational football. For good or bad, I watch every snap of games, but I focus on those moments in a game when it all comes down to one decision. We had two situations Sunday. I watched both those games.

In the early game, I’m watching the Jaguars and the Eagles. The Eagles have made a great field goal, and they’ve got the lead with eight seconds left in the game. I’ve never seen this in my life. They kick the ball down there, not through the end zone, and the kick returner runs it back, sets up a 57-yard field goal, and the Jaguars win the game.

Now, I’m thinking nothing could beat that. I’m sitting in the same place several hours later. I’m watching a very good football game between the Giants and the Commanders. The Giants are about to win the game in overtime with a field goal, and then Cam Skattebo fumbles. Then the Commanders come back down the field and get in field goal range, and they let the clock run out and the game ends in a tie. You cannot make this stuff up. So I think for all the data, all the stuff they do every single week, the hundreds of hours these coaches work, it comes down to situational football. That’s the beauty of the game and that’s why I love it so much.

What’s the one story from this season so far that you’d like to cover if you were still on the beat?

Jim: There are a few, actually. Just close to home, watching the Chargers be 0-and-5, having been a former Charger beat writer and knowing Jim Harbaugh’s history of success. Obviously, he’s never started 0-and-5. It would be interesting to dig into that and to really get behind the curtains and understand exactly what kind of dynamics are at play there. The interesting thing about that game Sunday was, remember, the Chargers had a chance to hire [Denver Broncos coach] Sean Payton and chose not to.

And if you know Sean Payton like I do, in the back of his mind, I don’t think he ever forgets that, because at that time he was a free agent, and there had been a lot of speculation that he might end up in LA, and they chose not to go that direction. So when I look at what they’re doing now, and I look at the success that Sean is having in Denver, and knowing his track record, it makes me think about, whenever those two teams play each other, that would be somewhere in the background. So, that would be one. 

Another one I look at is defensive coordinator Brian Flores and what he’s doing in Minnesota. And I wonder when he will get another chance to be a head coach, knowing the success that he has had with the unit that he’s having in Minnesota. And I say "when will he get a chance" because we all know what’s going on with him and the lawsuit that he has against the NFL. But there’s nothing that you can tell me that says Brian Flores isn’t deserving of another opportunity to be a head coach when you watch how his players perform for him in Minnesota. So, that one’s interesting. Two other things real quick would be the impact that Kenneth Walker has had in Kansas City. You didn’t hear a lot of people talking about the Chiefs in the same way coming into this season as they had in previous years, but now we’re finding out that they may be an even better team now that they have this running game. 

And then lastly, I would say the Philadelphia Eagles and everything that’s going on there, and particularly offensively, their struggle in the second halves of games, where I think coming into this week they had gone two straight games without scoring a point in the second half. And then Sunday they finally broke through with a field goal. But man, that unit has fallen off so far.

So those would be some of the things I would be really interested in, but there are always so many storylines. For example, what Kyle Shanahan is doing up in San Francisco right now. For them to go up and beat Seattle the way that they did in a really gritty, physical game that Seattle understood the importance of, and San Francisco wanting to make its own statement after having so much trouble winning up there. Man, that was impressive. And then I look at some of the personnel moves they made on that team and how that impacted that game. Mike Evans was tremendous, even though he’s playing with bruised ribs, and you saw his fingerprints all over that. Deebo Samuel comes back to the team, and his fingerprints are on that. 

And the guy that I think the general fan still doesn’t talk enough about on that team is Brock Purdy. There are still people out there who probably think of him as “Mr. Irrelevant.” All I know is Brock Purdy should be in the MVP conversation right now, with the way that he’s playing and what he’s doing. So, I could sit here all day and give you storylines that would be fun to get into. And those are just some that come immediately to mind.

Farrell: What is kind of comical for me is to go back to America’s Team, the Cowboys, and what happened to them on Thursday night. They got beat by a Tampa team playing with a second-string quarterback. But what struck me like a coda was Dak Prescott getting upset when a stadium employee called the loss "embarrassing" while Dak was on his way to the locker room. It was the most obvious thing and somebody had to say it.

Jim: The thing I found fascinating about what Dak said is that he may have been upset that the guy said it and then backed away from it. He didn't go 10 toes down on it when Dak turned to him. But Dak said, “It's not like he was wrong.” That was part of the quote. Even Dak knew it was embarrassing. 

Farrell: Jerry Jones also said it was embarrassing, and I think some changes are going to be made there. The Cowboys are always the biggest disappointment.

Jim: We talked about this before the season opener, right? Everyone said they drafted all these young players on defense, and it was going to make a difference. And I said, it takes time for young players to develop in some cases, regardless of how successful they were in college. And now defensively, they’re also banged up on the back end. Some may try to make the defensive coordinator the scapegoat, which I think would be unfair. 

Their offense was supposed to carry the load and it’s not right now. We do this with the Cowboys every year. I know Jerry wants us to talk about that team every year and that all publicity is good publicity. I’m trying to find the right words to be kind here and not come off wrong, but, damn, they ain’t always that good. They just ain’t. But we keep talking about them, and there are so many other storylines that we should be talking about in the NFL other than the Cowboys. 🏈

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