It’s a moving scene, during which Singletary struggles to keep his emotions in check.
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During ESPN’s 30-for-30 special on the 1985 Bears, Ryan wrote a letter to his former players as they cried while reading it. During one game, the team’s only loss in the 1985 season, Ditka and Ryan had to be separated on the sideline.
Ryan had a chance to publicly apologize the next season, but instead he doubled down, saying, “Kevin Gilbride will be selling insurance in two years”.
Yet that admiration goes beyond just those who knew or played for Ryan. The Bears hired Ryan in 1978 as he began to construct the 46 defense.
Fencik brought the ’81 letter the Bear defense wrote to owner George Halas all but demanding that Ryan be retained after then-coach Neill Armstrong was sacked. My childhood is filled with memories of those dominant Chicago defenses. Ryan, coaching the Eagles, didn’t forget.
Like any creative genius Buddy Ryan was set in his ways.
He was better known as the architect of the great Chicago Bears defense in the 1980s, a defense that made a hero of head coach Mike Ditka.
Rivera, referred to by some as “Chico” because he was the first National Football League player of Puerto Rican and Mexican decent, immediately ran to Ryan’s side, not knowing if he was in trouble or not.
Super Bowl III was beyond cataclysmic for the growth of the modern NFL.
I was sorry to hear about his passing and I’ll always remember his coaching brilliance as a defensive coordinator. Let’s think about his promise to build the meanest and toughest defense the citizens of Philadelphia had ever seen and his desire to ride that to a Super Bowl. His unit finished that season third in the league in yards allowed and points allowed and the only person in the NFL with enough knowledge of his system to continue it was Fisher.
As a linebackers coach for the 1968 New York Jets, Ryan instilled a fierceness in his units that Swoyersville native Walt Michaels – an offensive coach on that 1968 Jets team – insisted helped the Jets become the AFC’s first Super Bowl victor by upsetting the heavily-favored Baltimore Colts in Super Bowl III.
As the game ended, Ryan was hoisted up and carried off the field on the shoulders of his players. “His defensive influence was seen throughout football”. My job was to coach the football team and get everybody to try to do the same thing – that was to win a championship.
“I guess there wasn’t a lot to do compared to nowadays’ standards, but we thought there were”, Ryan told The Oklahoman in 1989, when his number was retired by Frederick High School.
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Ryan was borderline universally beloved by the players who worked under his defensive guidance. They went 15-1 and crushed the Patriots 46-10 in Super Bowl XX.
