by Doug Buffone

Look, don’t get me wrong, I was pretty lucky when it came to pro coaches. After all, for my first two NFL seasons I played for the Old Man himself. And if there was such a thing as a Mt. Rushmore of NFL coaching, you can bet your next paycheck that George Halas would be up there as one of the four most important coaches in league history.

But that doesn’t mean I wouldn’t have loved to play for other guys as well — especially as my career started winding down and I began to feel my chances at a championship slipping through my fingers. So for this month’s Buffone Top Ten I offer: ten coaches I would have loved to play for, in ascending order. Some were old timers, like myself. Others are contemporary. Some trafficked in emotion and inspiration. Others were brilliant, even cerebral strategists.

All, however, are winners. Or at least were winners. And all knew how to get the most out of the talent they were given.

(And one more thing these guys shared: all but one of them had the good fortune of having a Hall of Fame-caliber quarterback to lead his offense. Which, as most Bear fans will attest, is something as alien to the Windy City as palm trees and pink flamingos. But that’s another story for another time.)

#10 Mike Ditka
Mike certainly had the benefit of one of the most talented bunch of football players ever assembled, as well as a defensive coordinator (Buddy Ryan) who could somehow work the vast collection of All Pros under him into a virtual lather week after week. But all that aside, Ditka was still one of the great motivators the game has ever known. He also understood what it took to win football games. But more than anything else, his fire, intensity and larger-than-life personality set a perfect tone for what turned out to be one of the briefest, but most storied runs of dominance in NFL history.

#9 Tom Flores
Ask most people to name the great NFL coaches of all time, and very few will ever bring up Tom Flores. But Flores, one of the most decent men you’d ever want to meet, was one heck of a coach and in 1981 pulled off one of the most improbable Super Bowl wins ever. He spent almost his entire playing career as a backup QB, and maybe that was his key. Because just as so many journeymen catchers seem to mature into great baseball managers, there seems to be some link between NFL coaching success and smart, attentive young men who do little more than hold a clipboard Sunday after Sunday, year after year, and make mental notes about what works and what doesn’t.

#8 Don Shula
I will admit I was never taken with Shula as a coach. But then one day long after I retired I had the occasion to interview him. It was then that I finally got it. Don Shula is a great guy, has a ton of energy and has forgotten more football strategy than a lot of coaches will ever know. In fact, if you were to divide this list of great coaches into two categories — the inspirational hellfire-and-brimstone preachers and the mad scientists of strategy and play-calling — Shula is one of maybe two guys on the entire list you could argue fits comfortably into either category.

#7 Weeb Ewbank
Ewbank has been largely forgotten by many of today’s football fans, but he was one of the great coaches the league has ever known. Not only did his Jets manhandle Shula’s Colts in the single greatest upset in Super Bowl history, but his 1959 Baltimore Colts won what many still feel was the most exciting title game ever played — and a contest that, quite literally, changed the NFL forever. I had the good fortune to play an exhibition game under Ewbank (the ‘66 College All Star game at Soldier Field), and that one game made me appreciate what playing for a guy like that might have meant to both my career and my ring finger.

#6 Bill Cowher
Talk about Old School. Cowher was a blast from the past; an old-time blood-and-guts leatherhead who bled Steeler black and gold, week after week, year after year. But what was different about Cowher from all those other tightly wound workaholic control-freaks who pass themselves off as head coaches is that the guy’s act never grew old. His players never tuned him out. Not once. In fact, just the opposite: most seemed to love him more and more each year. And despite losing one star after another to free agency, he continued to get more out of his players than just about any coach in my lifetime. We haven’t seen the last of this guy by any means.

#5 Bill Belichick
Whoever said there are no second acts in American life never met Bill Belichick. The guy went from boy wonder to whipping boy to “Boy, I wish he was coaching my team.” And what I like most about Belichick isn’t so much his run of Super Bowl appearances, or even his stunning regular season success. It isn’t even how he’s transformed the Pats from league doormat to league super-power. It’s that he’s created a system that provides unwanted veterans and aging stars the opportunity to come in, do what they still do best, and maybe — just maybe — win a championship before hanging them up.

#4 Tom Landry
To appreciate how great Landry was it’s important to understand how bad the Cowboys once were. Long before they were America’s Team they were an expansion laughingstock. But then Tex Schramm started drafting the best athletes he could find, regardless of sport, and charging Landry with the task of teaching them how to play football. When I came into the league in ‘66, the process finally paid off and the Cowboys not only finished above .500 for the first time ever, they lost a heart-breaking NFL championship game to, arguably, the most powerful Packer team Vince Lombardi ever assembled. He might not have been my kind of motivator, but from a X’s and O’s standpoint Tom Landry took a back seat to no one.

#3 Bill Walsh
At first blush, you might ask why a three-yards-and-a-cloud-of-dust defender from the coal mines of Western Pennsylvania like myself would ever want to play for soft-spoken, gentlemanly, offensive genius from Northern California. Well, all those Super Bowl rings aside, there’s this: You want to know how to get the most out of any defender, especially late in the 4th quarter with everything on the line? Easy. Keep him off the field as much as possible up to that point. And that’s exactly what Walsh’s pass-first West Coast Offense did. And that’s exactly why I would have loved to play linebacker under a guy who eventually emerged as the NFL’s undisputed lord and high-master of ball control.

#2 Chuck Noll
Speaking of Western Pennsylvania, when I was a senior at Louisville the Steelers called and said they wanted to draft me. I pleaded with them not to. I said I had no desire to play for them. I wanted to go where I had a chance to win. The Steelers back then were not just bad; they were laughable. But then along came Chuck Noll in 1969 and with him soon came four Super Bowls in six years — not to mention a reason to feel proud about being from that area, even as the U.S. steel industry was slowly dying. If I had only known then what I know now, I would have been willing run naked from my house to the Steeler offices, pen in hand, and ask one simple question: Where do I sign?

#1 Vince Lombardi
If someone were to come up and ask me why I would ever want to play for Vince Lombardi, about whom Jerry Kramer once said, “Lombardi treated us all equally; like dogs,” I would have to steal a line Louis Armstrong once used when a reporter asked him to define jazz. He looked at the young man and said simply, “If you have to ask that question, you’d never understand my answer.” #

Love of the Game

By Doug Buffone

May 6, 2010

It’s not like there’s not a lot going on in Chicago pro sports.  Over the course of the last few days, my hometown Bears drafted what they hope is a bumper crop of young defensive stars, the Bulls fired their head coach, the Sox and Cubs continued to cling desperately to the rosy optimism of spring, and the city’s newest belle-of-the-ball, the Hawks, dodged one bullet after another in the pursuit of this town’s first Stanley Cup in a half a century.

That’s exactly why I chose today to write about roller derby.  Seriously.  Roller derby.  Or more to the point; ladies roller derby.

Bear with me, OK?

Look, I watch a lot of pro sports.  As both a radio analyst and commentator – not to mention a fan and former player – I’ve been watching professional sports with a critical eye my entire life.  And if there’s one thing I’ve noticed recently it’s this: As the money’s gotten bigger, as the media coverage has grown exponentially, and as the games themselves have gone from a simple seasonal diversion to a full-fledged national obsession, very few players these days seem to play for the sheer love of the game.  More often than not, I watch these guys and get the sense that somewhere deep in the back their mind is the knowledge that every time they put on that uniform, they do so in part because it’s their job.

Now that’s not true in all cases, certainly, but I can’t help but feel watching a lot of the Bears, Cubs, Sox, Bulls and Hawks that, as much as they like to win, a lot of them don’t need to win.  And as much as they love to compete, a lot of our local pro athletes give me the sense that, unless their financial demands are met, or unless all is right with their contracts or in their personal lives, they’re not about to throw their body in harm’s way or lay it all on the line, as they once did as kids with a dream.

But something happened to me recently that took my well-developed sense of cynicism and gave it a razor-sharp elbow to the ribs.  A few weeks ago on air at the Score I joked about my new favorite sport being roller derby.  Well, someone from the Windy City Rollers, Chicago’s very own all-female, flat-track roller derby league, was apparently listening and offered me and my family VIP passes to a match at the UIC Pavilion.

I went that Saturday night not knowing what to expect, but anticipating something not unlike the roller derby of my younger days, with its soft, banked track, its choreographed fights and its scripted storylines and predetermined outcomes.  Roller derby was, for me – and I would guess a lot of others as well – a little like pro wrestling on roller skates.

Boy was I wrong.  I’ll spare you the details, but suffice it to say these girls play for keeps.  I sat in the front row and was stunned to watch them skate and fall on that rock-hard surface, while throwing elbows with fury and flying around the track as fast as they could – all without the benefit of the somewhat forgiving banked oval I had always associated with their sport.

I watched some of the smaller, quicker skaters – “jammers” as they’re known in the language of roller derby – weave in and out of a rolling sea of larger women, half of whom were there to protect the jammers and half of whom were looking to flatten them with an elbow or a forearm shiver, something they often did.

There was this one young lady in particular I remember who must have weighed about 90 lbs. who kept getting tossed around like a rag doll.  It was almost comical at first, watching her get knocked to the ground by women twice her size, but as it kept happening time and time again, I found myself hoping she would just stay down so as not to risk getting hurt even more than she already was.  But that little girl wouldn’t stay down.  She kept getting back up and skating with all her might to catch up to the pack, only to find herself body slammed again and again and again.

And that was just one woman.  The night’s two derby matches were full of physical confrontations between skaters and both had to be stopped any number of times while medical care was given to someone who had fallen awkwardly or taken a shot to the head or some other vulnerable part of her body.

As I watched I found myself thinking – and this is why I began this blog by referencing the local pro sports teams – that if I saw this level of intensity on a consistent basis from the Bears, Bulls, Sox, Cubs and Hawks, I would never, ever say another word about effort or desire.  And I would fork over my money gladly for the privilege of watching them play.

There are many reasons to become a fan of the Windy City Rollers – not the least of which are the amusing names most of the girls adopt as their roller derby alter egos (like “Karmageddon,” “Ruth Enasia” and “Yvette YourMaker”).  But when all is said and done, this may be the most compelling reason of all to go to the UIC Pavilion some night to take in the roller derby:  not only do these girls risk serious bodily injury, and not only do they play with a fire and a passion that the men in this town summon up only when they deem it necessary, these young ladies don’t even get paid.

In fact, if you can believe it, they actually pay hundreds of dollars out of their own pockets to buy their own equipment and have to pay dues each month to keep their league afloat financially.

Now I don’t know about you, but where I’m from that’s what you call love of the game.

For as long as they’ve been listing sports scores in newspapers, we have been obsessed with numbers.  Fans, coaches and players alike; everyone picks up the local newspaper or goes online to check out how their teams or players are doing.

Now, under normal circumstances – say the middle of the season – such a daily checking of the numbers can give you a clear sense of how things are going with your team.  And during the middle of the season, checking the numbers can give you a pretty good idea of what kind of year it’s been.

But during the first few weeks of a season – particularly one as long and winding as the baseball season – the numbers have a way of clouding deeper truths, good and bad, that only time and greater exposure to the league will reveal.

As opposed to the raw numbers in the middle of the season – numbers that have the advantage of being buffered by a larger context and the statistical accumulation of everything that’s happened to that point – no such advantage exists at the start of the season.

The numbers are what they are, and every last statistic is out there naked, stripped bare of context and exposed to the harsh reality of what it is – or in many cases, isn’t.  And believe me, what digits and decimal points can do to a player’s psyche in the first few weeks of a season cannot be underestimated.

I remember waking up during a handful of seasons that the Bears started out 0-2 feeling sick to my stomach as I read the paper.  We were winless, and even if we were a good team, and I felt confident in that knowledge, there was something unnerving about looking at the standings and seeing that zero under the win column.  Soon, you’d feel the doubt start to creep in.  Even though you felt you were a good team coming out of camp, you’d secretly – if only for a moment –start to entertain the possibility that you might just be wrong.

Now, consider that doubt and amplify it many times over.  That’s the reality of what it’s like in baseball these days with its endless array of stats to measure a player’s worth or a team’s performance.

Imagine what it’s like every day to wake up in a world where hitting .300 is the gold standard and hitting .200 will get you released, only to find that you’re hitting .100?  And not only that, but your .100 batting average is being printed everyday in the papers across the country, being regularly posted online and being constantly displayed in stunning full-color high-definition on the scoreboard next to your picture every time to come to bat.

What’s more, think about trying to play in this age of wall-to-wall media coverage and fantasy sports mania – under the constant scrutiny of caffeinated talk show hosts and hyperbolic bloggers.  What you end up with is a recipe for anxiety bordering on out-and-out panic.

I see it happening in Chicago, even as I write this.  Our two baseball teams have stumbled out of the gate.  The fans, and I would imagine some of the players as well, have gone straight from hope and excitement to desperation and despair.

Why?  Because when you start out 5-11 like the Sox did or 5-9 like the Cubs did, people look at the standings and panic.  Not because the team has hit a rocky stretch, like even the best teams do at various points in the season, but because every day in the paper every player, every coach, every last fan is reminded in black in white that the team might not be that good.

Well, as guy who’s been to a few rodeos in his time, let me tell fans Cubs and Sox fans everywhere this: relax.  Take a deep breath and relax.

We’ve got two pretty good baseball teams in town.  They’ve both got a nice mix of veterans and talented young kids, they’re both managed by great baseball men and both play in very winnable divisions.

But all that aside, look at the numbers – or more to the point, look beyond the numbers.  I’m pretty certain, for example, that Carlos Quentin is going to hit more than .176 before everything is said and done; same with Gordon Beckham.  And check back in September. I’m pretty certain you’ll see Gavin Floyd and Jack Peavy with ERAs closer to 4.00 than 8.00.

Likewise, if the past few summers have taught us anything it’s that Aramis Ramirez is better than a .139 hitter and Carlos Zambrano is not a guy who’s going to post a 7.20 ERA over the course of six months.

What’s more, both the Sox and Cubs have played only a handful of teams so far.  And until they see everyone at least once, there’s no point in trying to figure out where each team fits in its league’s roster of pennant contenders.

Again, just relax fans.  What happens in April counts, but remember, more often than not it’s a smokescreen.  So much so, in fact, that I offer off the top of my head these three little tidbits of supporting evidence:

• Last year’s AL MVP Joe Mauer didn’t even play his first game until May 1.

• In 2010, the New York Yankees lost their first 8 games to their bitter rivals, the Boston Red Sox, before going on to win the World Series.

• The 1986 Milwaukee Brewers started 17-1 and by the end of the season missed the playoffs entirely.

Like I said, it’s early.  The raw numbers right now might be a little scary, but don’t climb out on to the ledge just yet.  In fact, I’d recommend Sox and Cub fans sit back, relax and enjoy the ride this summer.  Given the talent assembled on both the North and South Sides of town, I still have the sense things are going to get interesting come September.

By Doug Buffone

By now I’m sure you’ve seen the unbelievable play that White Sox pitcher Mark Buehrle made on Opening Day this year.

In case you’ve not had the pleasure, let me recap:  a screaming line drive gets hit back up through the middle, and Buehrle sticks hisleft foot out to try to stop it.  The ball caroms to his left into foul territory, at a slight angle toward first base.  Reacting despite the pain in his foot, Buehrle sprints toward the ball and when he gets to it, understands immediately he’ll never have time to right himself and throw.  Therefore, he does the only thing he can do:  he snatches the ball with his glove and without looking, flips it between his legs to first baseman, Paul Konerko, who showing a flair for the dramatic himself, then barehands it just before the runner hits the bag.

If my description will not suffice, take a look for yourself.

Buehrle, Opening Day 2010 Play

It was a stunning moment and one that immediately carved out for itself a place in South Side lore alongside Dwayne Wise’s history-making leap last season and ahead of any number of other great Sox highlights.  And as you probably can attest, it’s been shown time and time again on all the highlight shows and has become something of a YouTube sensation – so much so, in fact, that I’m sitting here writing this from memory.

But what has stuck with me since isn’t so much that play.  It’s something I saw on the third or fourth replay.  It was a moment that captured the essence of why these current Sox have won the only professional championship Chicago has known in the past quarter century and why at the hall of champions the Cubs remain – as they have for more than a century – on the outside looking in.

Watch the play again.  You’ll see Buehrle make his kick save and sprint toward the foul line.  You’ll see Konerko run, not toward the ball which was headed in his general direction, but to the bag to ready himself for a possible throw.

But in addition to all that, you’ll see sprinting right behind the runner to back up the play – just as every catcher from little league on up has been taught to do, but somehow has forgotten – A.J. Pierzynski, who in a very real way is the heart and soul of the Sox.

And while it took maybe three or four times watching the play to see what it was that moved me so much about it, when I finally did see it, it made an indelible impression.  There is was in my mind’s eye: a perfect triangle of grit, moxie and balls.  Buehrle, Konerko and Pierzynski; three Chicago athletes who never take a play off, never give an opponent an inch and never take for granted the gifts they’ve been given.

The Sox have certainly had more far talented players in the six seasons that Buehrle, Konerko and Pierzynski have played together – and none of those three, by the way, is ever going to the Hall of Fame.  But no one anywhere in the Sox organization has been any more responsible for the team’s recent run of success – or its world championship – than the club’s holy trinity of Baseball IQ, Buehrle, Konerko and Pierzynski.

They say kids learn from what they see, and not from what they hear.  And the same can be said of a professional athlete.  Sure, Ozzie Guillen is always willing to get up and spout off about something.  And Kenny Williams can say some remarkably pointed things and at times be candid to a fault.  But at the end of the day, to a young player their words don’t make a lick of difference.

In a professional clubhouse, certain guys set the tone for how things should be done.  And they don’t always do it with what they say.  Guys who are true clubhouse leaders set the standard with the things they do, both on and off the field, and with how they go about the business of trying to win games.

For comparison sake, look at the Cubs.  Now I have no doubt that guys like Derrek Lee, Ryan Theriot and Ryan Dempster are real gamers, and bring an air of professionalism with them to the ballpark every day.  But in Cubs’ clubhouse, whatever good there is always seems to get drowned out in a tidal wave of ego, selfishness and unprofessional behavior.

Sure, Milton Bradley had talent, Alfonso Soriano can run like a deer and hit the ball a mile, and Carlos Zambrano was clearly born with lightning in his arm.  But think about it; are those the kind of guys you want to go to war with?

And what does it say about a front office that chooses to swap out the quiet, steady leadership of, say, Mark DeRosa, for a little extra talent – knowing that that extra talent comes in a package as loosely wrapped as Milton Bradley?

Sure Bradley’s gone now, but what kind of organization values nut-jobs like him over hard-working, team-first guys like DeRosa?

But I’m getting off point here.  My intent is not to slam the Cubs.  My intent is to praise three very special teammates on the South Side whom I’ve had the pleasure to watch for six seasons.

You want to know why some clubs win championships and others don’t – and why the Sox are so much closer to playing in this year’s World Series than the Cubs?  It’s not about pitching, hitting or defense.  It’s about leadership and character.  It’s about respecting the game and playing every day as if your life depended upon it.

But more than anything, it’s about a team having at its core, guys everyone else can rely on to answer the bell, time and time again – grinders like Mark Buehrle, Paul Konerko and A.J. Pierzynski.

By Doug Buffone

A few days ago I wrote about the fact that the Bears front office needs to break from the pack and start drafting not so much great athletes, like most NFL teams do, but great football players. And while I hold out hope that at some point the light will go on over someone’s head in Halas Hall, and Jerry Angelo and company will see the wisdom of occasionally bypassing a great “athlete” for some kid with a nose for the football or with the heart of a champion, but honesty compels me to report I doubt that’s going to happen anytime soon.

The Bears just seem far too enamored with quantifiable gifts like size and speed – not to mention name recognition – to ever roll the dice on intangible like heart and passion.

Think I’m wrong? How else can you explain their decision to give Alex Brown his walking papers this week?

Yeah I know, they signed Julius Peppers and he’s quick as lightning, he’s a great athlete and a great pass rusher, blah, blah, blah. But Peppers came at a price, and that price includes something much more than the $91million the Bears are going to pay him over the next six years – $42 million of which is guaranteed.

It also cost them the fire and the dedication of Alex Brown (not to mention the money and roster spot they’ll have to burn to find someone to replace Peppers in short yardage situations).

Look, Alex Brown was no one’s idea of a Hall of Famer. But he was a warrior. He never took a down off, and could do a little bit of everything on the defensive side of the ball, including stopping the run. Plus he loved to play the game. The problem with Brown is that nothing he did well could be easily quantified, unlike Peppers, with his sacks and interceptions. And if there’s one thing we know about the Bears it’s this: management loves its numbers, especially during press conferences when they’re trying to justify a trade and a free agent signing, or trying to convince us how much better they’re going to be.

So much like Jerry Angelo did when he opted for Cedric Benson over Thomas Jones, or chose Jay Cutler over Kyle Orton; he decided to once again throw money at a problem and add a guy with a fancy pedigree.

The problem is, by doing that, he not only pushed all his money toward the center of the table and went all in on a guy with talent and upside, he sent a kid packing who – whatever he may have lacked in talent or raw ability – more than made up for it in passion, heart and the willingness to roll up his sleeves and do the kind of things playoff teams need to get done.

By Doug Buffone

When I first came into the NFL, the league had many of its founding fathers still in positions of power, including my first coach, George Halas. As a result, many of the things the most established teams did year after year as a matter of practice got adopted by teams up and down the league, good and bad. I’m sure these copy-cat franchises figured, that’s how things have always been done, and that’s how great football minds like Halas did it – and since it worked for Halas, it just might work for us.

It was like a pro football version of monkey-see, monkey-do played out Sunday after Sunday in stadiums across America.

But then along came Paul Brown, the innovative coach of the old Cleveland Browns who won every championship in the upstart All American Football Conference before bringing his powerful team and his innovative coaching philosophies to the NFL. In many ways Brown was the architect of the modern football organization and he introduced the NFL to such at-the-time radical concepts as game films, headsets, calling plays from the press box, and an early version of the high-powered West Coast offense.

Soon, everyone started copying Brown, believing – like they did with Halas – that what worked for one will work for all.

The same pack mentality also got applied to the NFL draft. Teams back then looked at successful franchises like the Bears who drafted big, tough, well-known football players from successful, well-known college football programs, and they followed suit, no questions asked.

But then along came the Dallas Cowboys and their front office brain trust, GM Tex Schramm and director of player personnel Gil Brandt. The expansion Cowboys had been awful for years, but under Schramm and Brandt they decided to do something radically different. Instead of drafting the best football players available, they started drafting the best athletes, including a number of basketball players. They figured that if they assembled the best athletes in the league, they could simply teach them how to play football.

What’s more, Schramm and Brandt didn’t just scout the big-time college football programs and consensus All Americans. They beat the bushes and traveled to the tiniest of schools to ferret out the biggest, strongest and fastest kids in the country.

Almost overnight, the Cowboys went from laughing stock to superpower, and in the process their lineup got transformed from a rag-tag collection of expansion-era castoffs to a virtual who’s who of NFL superstars.

Back when I was playing, the Cowboys had Ron Widby, a punter who had been an All American power forward in basketball and who was a scratch golfer. They had flanker Pete Gent, who had never played a down of football in his life, but who hadbeen one of the greatest scorers and rebounders in Michigan State history. And in wide receiver Bob Hayes, they had an Olympian who won a gold medal and set a world record in the 100-yard dash.

What’s more, they somehow dug up guys like Rayfield Wright, Jethro Pugh and Cliff Harris who as collegians starred at such storied football factories as Fort Valley State, Elizabeth City State and Ouachita Baptist.

In every case, Schramm and Brandt couldn’t care less if the guy knew how to play football, or where the hell he had played it. All they wanted to know was if he was stronger than guys his size and if he could run faster and jump higher than the average NFL player at his position. Everything else was up to Tom Landry.

Eventually the entire league began mimicking the Cowboys and feverishly started seeking out the biggest, fastest and strongest college kids in the country, regardless of whether or not they could actually play the game. In time, in fact, the NFL introduced a scouting combine, which allowed every team’s scouts to travel to one convenient location so they could time, weigh and measure one player after another, for days on end. The end result was a tidal wave of like-minded thinking, not unlike a bunch of lemmings running headlong toward the edge of a cliff.

That pack mentality reached the height of absurdity in 2007 when a moderately regarded quarterback named JaMarcus Russell from LSU came out of nowhere to wow everyone at the combine with his rare combination of speed, strength and athleticism. The buzz over Russell went viral. He immediately shot up every club’s draft chart, got picked number one overall by Oakland, held out for months, eventually signed for over $70 million and within weeks was anointed the starting quarterback of the hapless Raiders.

By then, the fact that the kid couldn’t play a lick hardly mattered. He was big, he was fast and he was strong, and so, in keeping with accepted football wisdom, he had to be a great football player.

Since that time, of course, Russell’s proceeded to lose games at a staggering rate (and in painful fashion) while putting up some of the worst passing numbers in the history of the professional football.

So what does this have to do with the Bears? This; it is time for the Bears to stop running with the pack and to start thinking for themselves. It’s time for them to start drafting the like knowledgeable professional football people they are. I’d love to see them embrace some contrary thinking and start combing the planet for talented young kids who not only love football, but actually know how to play it.

Look, given Butkus’ bad knees and the likelihood that his time in the 40 would not have set a scout’s heart aflutter, if Dick were a college senior today there’s a good chance he’d be a mid-round pick. And I might not have been drafted at all, given the fact that my greatest talents on the football field – namely a nose for the ball and my ability to play through pain – barely register on all those speed, strength and agility tests most teams now use to determine a kid’s draft-worthiness.

Dick Butkus Highlight Reel

You know what I find interesting? Of all the teams in the NFL, I only see two who have resisted the temptation to draft athletes over football players. You know who they are? The Pittsburgh Steelers and the Indianapolis Colts. Do the Steelers and Colts have athletic teams? Sure they do; in this day and age you have to.

But more than athleticism, their rosters are littered with guys who can flat out play the game. In fact, year in and year out they probably employ more pure football players than the next ten teams combined.

And outside of New England, can you name two more consistently excellent franchises over the past decade than Pittsburgh and Indy? I sure can’t.

Don’t get me wrong. I like some of the Bear’s picks of late, and I agree that in the early rounds you have to pursue stunning athletes. But as the draft goes on, and more and more teams start running down their checklist of combine scores, checking off one “athlete” after another, I’d love to see Jerry Angelo and his lieutenants do something completely unexpected, completely out-of-the-box and completely contrary to conventional football thinking.

I’d love to see them go old school on the rest of the league and do something outrageous – you know, like draft football players.

by Doug Buffone

Thats right Bear’s fans, I have entered the world of cyberspace. Look here for my thoughts on the Bears and their future as they move forward to become a Championship caliber team. Please leave any comments or suggestions you have and look to see a revamp of my website, www.buffone.com, over the summer.