The 20 Biggest Baddest Bears of All Time; #3 "Da Coach" Mike Ditka......

No. 3 Mike Ditka

http://cdn.bleacherreport.net/images...jpg?1345686375
Mike Ditka


You can honestly make a case for the final three spots that they are all grouped together as some of the toughest players in the history of the NFL. There’s very little that separates these three in the way they played the game.


Their competitive streak was legendary, and the way they went and sought out contact puts them all in a category of their own.


Mike Ditka was a fiery competitor, both as a coach and as a player. It didn’t matter who Ditka was playing against; he always wanted to hurt you.


In a phone interview with Bleacher Report, former Bears linebacker Doug Buffone raved about Ditka’s talent.


“If Ditka played in today’s game, he would catch 100 balls a season easily; he was that type of talent,” Buffone said. “In that era, you destroyed the tight end as he came off the line, absolutely destroyed him. There was none of this free release stuff you see now.”


Ditka was another revolutionary as a tight end in an era when most TEs blocked. Ditka became the pass-catching threat that is now associated with the modern TE. As a result, he was named to the Hall of Fame for his accomplishments in revolutionizing the game of football.


Above all that, though, Ditka was one of the nastiest, meanest tight ends in the history of the NFL.

Here's some highlights for his 1963 season; http://www.nfl.com/videos/nfl-game-h...ighlights-1963

What can anyone say about Mike Ditka that hasn't been said before? He was the first original pass catching TE in NFL history and he mad everyone who ever tried to tackle him after a reception pay the price.

After you watch him play and look at the dedication he put into winning a football game it becomes real easy to see why George Halas hired him to coach the Bears before he passed away and told him that he could coach the team for as long as he cared to stay and do it. Ditka never quit anything in his life and he would not have quit coaching the Bears if the :asshat3: hadn't fired him and forced us to go through a decade of "Wanny" and Dick "Ja Moron". Hell he might still be coaching them today.

You either love the guy or you hate him but as a football player you had to respect him. He was and always will be one of a kind.

Eh he had worn out his welcome when we let him go; and proved in NO that he didn't have what it took to coach anymore. Problem wasn't them firing him, it was how poorly they were at replacing him. Awesome player, awesome coach at the time. It all worked perfect, but when the time passed you cannot hang on.

I to this day don't know why we don't use the TE more w/the history we have there. This year might be the first in a long time.

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Originally Posted by Riczaj01

Eh he had worn out his welcome when we let him go; and proved in NO that he didn't have what it took to coach anymore. Problem wasn't them firing him, it was how poorly they were at replacing him. Awesome player, awesome coach at the time. It all worked perfect, but when the time passed you cannot hang on.

I to this day don't know why we don't use the TE more w/the history we have there. This year might be the first in a long time.

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Worn out his welcome with Mikey yeah but with Bears fans no. And I wouldn't say he couldn't coach any longer and as you may have noticed once McCaskey destroyed that SB team and age took it's toll on some of the vets nobody coached them well.

The firing of Ditka was the beginning of another decade of misery as far as I'm concerned. Gimme' Ditka over the useless piece of shit Wannstadt or the hopelessly inept Jauron anytime. At least the Ditka coached teams kicked ass and were entertaining.

Soul, I was watching something about that 86, 87 team. And he was wearing on the players as well. He found out about a Chunky commercial a few of them were signed on to do, and told them to drop it so they could center on playing ball. Ditka's face was everywhere, but he wouldn't let the players do the same; and later that year he's in that commercial and that finally broke the straw w/some of the players.

Of course the fans still love him. Just like they love all those players still. But that doesn't mean any of them could still play when they were done, and his style had worn out it's welcome.

Of course he wears on people. How could he not? He wears on me too but we would have been far better off keeping him and Da Coach and keeping Jerry Vainisi as the GM instead of what Mikey did to that team.

The team got old but Vainisi would have rebuilt with the type of players Ditka wanted and we would have gone on far better than fared under Wanny and the Asshat. I don't think Ditka was God but he was a far better coach than what we ended up with. Firing him was a mistake.

There are not two individuals in Bears history that I dislike more than Mikey McCaskey and that stupid SOB Dave Wannstedt. Those looks he got on his face during the game just annoyed the shit out of me. It was like he didn't have a clue about what was going on. I'll take Lovie's stoicism any day all day before seeing that again.

Well again, no doubt Mikey screwed up in how he brought in afterwards, no debate there. But we can agree to disagree on if he should have kept Ditka. Regarldess of how it ended. He helped keep the Bears relevent at a player and brought the Bears back to relevance as a coach.

The only reason Ditka didn't win in New Orleans is because of shitty front office management. While it is true that he mortgaged the farm by trading away all of his draft picks to get Ricky Williams in 2008, he was going to extreme measures to provide the jolt that it was going to take to build the Saints into a winner. Well, what happened? A year or so later after Ditka is fired, the Saints were in the playoffs with I think a division title. Maybe Ditka had more to do with the building of the first real wave of decent Saints teams in the franchise's history.

But I will agree with Ric on one thing, though it's kind of a moot point: I think one of the reasons Ditka wore out his welcome in Chicago was because of that stunt he pulled on national TV when he yanked Jim Harbaugh by the face mask for audibling in the Metrodome in Minneapolis and the play resulted in an interception. It made Ditka look like he had lost all control over his faculties, and I think after that, he had to go. Also, he wasn't winning anymore. True, Mikey was slowly dismantling the Bears and the franchise was descending into darkness because of that, but of the younger players who he coached in the early 1990s, Ditka no longer had what it took to reach them, and it had been building for at least five years like Ric said.

About the face mask pull. EVERYONE has a few moments in life that aren't good. Still I ( ME ) think if M MC wasn't in charge and kept Ditka and Vainisi, the team would have been better off. About the commercials, well M Mc topped Ditka's ego with the way he ran everyone outta town. Kinda glad ( well no but in hind sight ) they lost in 06 just so M Mc never got back to the top.

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Originally Posted by yttocs

About the face mask pull. EVERYONE has a few moments in life that aren't good. Still I ( ME ) think if M MC wasn't in charge and kept Ditka and Vainisi, the team would have been better off. About the commercials, well M Mc topped Ditka's ego with the way he ran everyone outta town. Kinda glad ( well no but in hind sight ) they lost in 06 just so M Mc never got back to the top.

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I don't think Mikey would have gotten back to the top after Super Bowl XLI if we had won. Remember that "Ginny" fired her son and essentially replaced him with Jerry Angelo. I am not so sure that Jerry Angelo wouldn't still be in power today if we had won Super Bowl XLI, made it to the playoffs in '08 which nearly happened had we not lost to the Texans in the last game of the season, made it to the Super Bowl in '10, or made to the playoffs in '11. Little minute things, details...those were the things that made Jerry Angelo such a bad GM.