Super Bowl XX ended with two men being carried off the field for the first time in championship history: Bears head coach Mike Ditka and defensive coordinator Buddy Ryan. To some, it may have seemed magnanimous, but to the two riding out of the Super Dome on their player’ shoulders, either felt the other man not only undeserving but a pretender to his own throne.
Ryan – the architect of the famed 46 Defense – had already upset Ditka and the rest of the Bears organization by announcing the night before the Super Bowl that he would be leaving to become head coach of the Philadelphia Eagles. The Bears and Eagles had been playing one another about every other season since 1933, but their rivalry never forged much heat until Ditka and Ryan were on opposite sidelines.
Ditka had starred for the Bears as a tough-nose tight end, becoming a favorite of Papa Bear George Halas. He was mentored as a coach by Dallas legend Tom Landry, and when the Bears fired Neil Armstrong in 1981, Ditka was on the short list for the top job. But Ryan had designed, built and then executed what was fast becoming a powerhouse defensive unit – the heart and soul of Bears football – since becoming Armstrong’s defensive coordinator in 1978. He also thought he deserved the top position, and his defensive players thought similarly. They together wrote a letter to Halas urging him to retain Ryan, no matter what it took.
Halas re-signed Ryan – but as defensive coordinator – before then hiring Ditka as head coach, forcing the two into a shotgun marriage that was tinged with rancor, jealousy and animosity from the start. The two ultimately built a Super Bowl champion and the greatest team in Bears history, if not one of the most dominant in NFL annals. When they separated, something went with them, because neither man was as good apart as together, and what might have been a Bears dynasty crumbled with it.
After both won the Super Bowl in January, they didn’t have to wait long to meet again. Ryan, as head coach of the Eagles, visited Soldier Field in one of the opening weeks to the 1986 season. Ryan came into the game claiming the Bears had absolutely no chance to win back-to-back NFL titles (largely because of his departure) and his Eagles players called the defending title holders “pansies.”
The Bears won 13-10 in overtime, giving Ditka bragging rights over his former coordinator.
The two met again in 1987, but this time in Philadelphia and, more importantly, using replacement players caused by the 1987 NFL strike. Ryan referred to his own players as scabs, while Ditka embraced his as the real Bears. Chicago won again 35-3 to give Ditka a two-nil edge over Ryan.
But that didn’t stop Ryan from bragging.
The pair would meet for the third – and most important – time on New Year’s Eve day, 1988, when the high flying Eagles and QB Randall Cunningham met the 12-4 Bears in a divisional playoff game in Soldier Field. Under Ryan’s tutelage, the Eagles had made the playoffs for the first time in seven years.
Ditka’s Bears won the NFC Central and gained home field advantage throughout the entire playoffs by going 12-4, despite Ditka’s suffering a heart attack earlier in the year. Ryan pushed the Eagles to 10-6, winning the NFC East title on the final weekend of the regular season when they beat the rival Cowboys. That game would prove to be the final ever coached by Ditka’s mentor Tom Landry.
Despite maps to the contrary, Ryan claimed to own home field advantage when the Eagles came to Chicago, based on the fact that he had never lost a playoff game in Soldier Field. That was another not-so-veiled dig at Ditka who had failed to return the Super Bowl champ ’85 Bears to the 1986 or 1987 title games.
Once the Eagles’ team plane landed in Chicago, Ryan commandeered their bus drivers to bypass the team hotel and instead circle Soldier Field, blowing their horns to announce Buddy was back in town. Coming into the game, Ryan and Ditka shared two things – a mutual love for smash mouth, defensive football; coupled with a deep-seated hate of one another.
At kick off, the sun was shining and the temperatures were unusually warm in the upper thirties for Chicago. It was also unusual that the Bears began the scoring right away with a 64-yard bomb from Mike Tomczak to Dennis McKinnon to go up 7-0 in the first quarter. The Eagles came back with field goals, and the Bears scored another first half touchdown and field goal to go up 17-6 just before the two minute warning.
And then something truly strange occurred.
Some of the players said later that they thought the parking lot was on fire, as thick smoke rolled in from over one of the end zones. But what it turned out to be was a rolling, blanket-like fog sweeping in over Lake Michigan. The fog came into the Soldier Field bowl and remained there – so thick no one could see – for the rest of the game.
What would ultimately enter NFL lore as the “Fog Bowl” was on.
Referee Jim Tunney asked both Ryan and Ditka if they thought they should postpone the game, but the NFL had another two doubleheaders that day and another two doubleheaders the next, making it almost impossible to reschedule. Both coaches also believed that, with their defense the stronger of the two, they might have an advantage in the fog-shrouded field. They played on.
Without any ability to see the scoreboard, Tunney wound up having to use his wireless microphone to call down and distance for every play so the players, fans and coaches would know what was going on.
The NFL changed its media policy mid-game to allow reporters who were typically confined to the press box to instead go down to the sidelines to try to see – and cover – the action.
The Bears public address announcer could not relay any information to the fans, and begged for their patience, only to be booed heartily. He then sent an usher down to the sideline with a two-way radio so he could relay the action back to the PA booth and the public announcer could then repeat it to the stadium crowd.
Current Fox pre-game host and Hall of Fame quarterback Terry Bradshaw was providing the color for CBS Sports and said it was the most frustrating game of his playing or broadcasting career because he was trying to analyze a game he couldn’t see. CBS ditched its cameras surrounding the stadium and instead used two of its sideline cameras from the “NFL Today” pre-game show to capture whatever action it could.
The Eagles scored two field goals in the second half and the Bears managed one other – all of them from no more than 35 yards – meaning that the line of scrimmage was no more than the 18.
It’s amazing to consider that Philadelphia penetrated the Bears 25 yard line no less than nine times in the game, and got to the 11 or less five times. But the Bears defense – and Ditka – had the last laugh when the Eagles couldn’t manage any touchdowns and failed to score at all on five of those nine red zone possessions.
Late in the game, with a chance to put the Eagles up 19-17, quarterback Randall Cunningham unleashed a long bomb down the left sideline. The ball left his hand and disappeared, and no one on that end of the field could see what happened. But when the ball came down, Bears cornerback Vestee Jackson intercepted it, and the Bears fans that were right there indicated what had happened to the rest of the crowd by their roar.
Jackson returned the interception 51 yards, but the Eagles could only try to tackle him by following the yelling of the Bears crowd that followed Jackson like a wave as he briefly emerged from the fog in front of them. The interception led to a short Bears field goal – their only scoring of the second half – and salted away the game 20-12. Ditka moved to 3-0 against his nemesis Ryan.
Unfortunately for the Bears, they would lose the following week to the eventual Super Bowl champion 49ers in the NFC title game, and the end of what might have been a dynastic run had begun. Ryan had certainly weakened the Bears by his own subtraction, and despite Ditka’s efforts, it was never the same team.
The Eagles continued to win under Ryan, as he revived the franchise and took them to the playoffs for three more straight years. But the Eagles raised and then dashed their own fans’ hopes, losing in the first round every time.
The only other time that Ditka and Ryan prowled opposite sidelines was on a “Monday Night Football’ game on October 2, 1989. Randall Cunningham again threw for more than 400 yards – just as he had in the Fog Bowl – but the Bears caused multiple turnovers and won yet again 27-13. Ditka had a four-game sweep over Ryan.
Throughout their feud, Ditka tried to de-personalize his comments to the media, but after the Monday night game, he finally remarked, “Empty cans make the most noise, and he’s an empty can. This game is between the Bears and the Eagles and not between Ditka and Ryan. We all know who would win that one – Ditka, hands down.”
They never met on the field again.
An interesting coda, however, is that Ryan eventually got his win over his former Bears team, but he had to resort to what are typically unheard of tactics in a preseason game in order to do it.
Ryan was coaching the Arizona Cardinals, and late in a 1994 game, the Bears held a slim 16-14 lead with only minutes to go. Ryan then took the unusual step of re-inserting all of his Cardinals starters against the Bears fourth and fifth-stringers to drive for a winning last-second field goal. Ryan had finally beaten the Bears – in a meaningless game – and was soon out of football.
---THOMAS TYRER.
The potato skins are one of many tantalizing appetizers at The Fireplace Inn.
