November 1, 2012
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Richard Dent is blaming Mike Ditka for not winning follow up Superbowls after 1985. The Hall of Famer says that 85' team should have won two more and he's blaming da coach.
"We came back three years in a row and had home-field advantage," Dent told WSCR-AM in Chicago on Wednesday. "Our coach couldn't figure out the right quarterback to play. The disappointing part to me is that we only got one out of it. We should have been the first team ever to win three Super Bowls in a row. It was there for the taking, but we didn't manage that one position right."
He was especially mad about the 1986 season when Jim McMahon went down to injury and instead of putting in Mike Tomczack or Steve Fuller, Ditka brought in Doug Flutie.
"Bringing Doug Flutie in and thinking that he's going to come in and be on a team for three weeks and start him in a playoff game?" Dent said. "Hell, I mean you're trying to change the name on the Super Bowl trophy to Mike Ditka (from) Vince Lombardi when you do something like that. We had won with Tomczak and Fuller. That's all we needed to do is stay with that plan. Then you bring a guy off the street."
The Bears never did make it back to the Superbowl, instead losing in the playoffs to in the next years to the Washington Redskins and 49er's respectively.
Ditka doesn't seem to be bothered by Dent's comments.
"He's done it many times," he said. "I have no idea (why he's doing it again now)."
"I thought we did a lot of good things," Ditka said. "We probably screwed up some things we could have done better. But I don't know if that was one of them.
Personally I don't blame da coach for not winning anymore Superbowls. Winning one is hard enough, let alone three. The only thing that makes me mad about Ditka is that he didn't let Walter Payton score a touchdown in the Superbowl, instead letting William "The Refigerator" Perry" get one.
Maybe Dent's comments are the same feelings of some of his former teamates but the fact is, that was 27 years ago. Time to let it go.
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