We need players to win. If I'm fired, I'm fired. If I have to, I'll drive a cab. Whoa, hold on there. The Bears are Super Bowl champs, remember.
Policies can change.
Maybe when the magnitude of the achievement sinks in, McCaskey will get together with Jerry Vainisi, the general manager, and plot a course that will keep his players together and at the same time make him a popular figure at the league meetings, where financial extravagance is sneered at. If Bell and Harris, another pair of young players just reaching the full flower of their meanness, return, the Bears will be so formidable that the league will have to change the rules again. As it is, Chicago ranks with the legendary defensive teams of history. The Bears are the best of the modern era, which commenced with new rules that encouraged passing in 1978. The Steelers of '74-'76 ranked slightly higher in a few statistical departments, but they were playing under the old rules.