Speaker 1: Please welcome to the stage Chicago Bears Pro Bowl quarterbacks
Speaker 1: Jim McMahon and Mitchell Trubisky, along with your hosts Jeff
Speaker 1: Joniac and Tom Fair. Good morning everybody. How are we doing.
Speaker 1: Did you make it through the night? Glad you came
Speaker 1: out first thing in the morning. Good to have you here.
Speaker 1: Our first legacy conversation of the day, and it's gonna
Speaker 1: be a wonderful day. A lot of walk down memory
Speaker 1: lanes and a lot of insight about all these great
Speaker 1: players and Bears history. Mitchell Trubisky and Jim McMahon meeting
Speaker 1: for the first time. Right, we need to get these
Speaker 1: guys microphones though. That's the first order of the business.
Speaker 1: Big Tom there, Well, a lot of us have not
Speaker 1: seen Jim at this time in the morning. You know,
Speaker 1: he was a late arrival to late arrival to the
Speaker 1: locker room. But I'm inspired to see him here early
Speaker 1: this morning. Well, why don't you hand him a mic
Speaker 1: so we could talk. We need two mics up here,
Speaker 1: so why don't you hand him a mic until he
Speaker 1: can get one air. So Jim, welcome, welcome, always, good
Speaker 1: to see it. It's great to be back here in Chicago.
Speaker 1: I lived lived here for twenty eight years, so it's us.
Speaker 1: It's part of my life, big part of my life.
Speaker 1: All my kids were raised here, born and raised, and
Speaker 1: my oldest son still lives here. That was my granddaughter.
Speaker 1: Know you saw me carting her in here earlier. But
Speaker 1: great to be back and looking forward to the rest
Speaker 1: of the day. Thank you guys. And Mitch obviously you're
Speaker 1: a Chicago Bears quarterback. You know about Jim McMahon. I do.
Speaker 1: I know a lot about Jim Now what you learn
Speaker 1: all kinds of stuff, swapping good stories last night. Just
Speaker 1: excited to learn from him and hear everything he's got
Speaker 1: to say and uh, just what it takes to play
Speaker 1: a quarterback in the city of Chicago and and be
Speaker 1: successful at it. So it's it's been nice talking to
Speaker 1: him and getting to know him and his family. Let's
Speaker 1: start this way before we get to start. This is
Speaker 1: to be successful here, you got to start wearing a headband,
Speaker 1: all right, and some sunglasses. Stop one now you're ready
Speaker 1: to go, Kevin here, This that's how you go. Things
Speaker 1: will start to change for you now. It's it's a
Speaker 1: great question to start though, because what is it like
Speaker 1: Jim and what you've learned Mitch to be the quarterback
Speaker 1: of the Chicago Bears. Well, for the most part, it's
Speaker 1: it's a thankless job. He goes a lot of times
Speaker 1: all you're doing is handing off to guys like Walter Payton,
Speaker 1: which is not a bad thing. But I think Mitch's
Speaker 1: is in a good spot because this offense here showcases
Speaker 1: his talents. And I would have loved to play in
Speaker 1: an offense like this where you got so many things
Speaker 1: going on and so many options. But you know, I
Speaker 1: think it'd be a lot of fun to play in
Speaker 1: that offense. Jim, when you came out of college, you
Speaker 1: had seventy two nca passing records and it was great coaching.
Speaker 1: But so when you came to the NFL, was it
Speaker 1: like a I'm not a step backwards, with all due
Speaker 1: respect to what the NFL was about, then it was
Speaker 1: a big step backwards, big step backwards, because I was
Speaker 1: used to throwing the ball thirty five forty times a game,
Speaker 1: and it took me about six years here to do that. Well, Mitch,
Speaker 1: for you, was it a big advancement forward when you
Speaker 1: got a chance to work with Matt Naggie and all
Speaker 1: the offensive coaches that you have and the amount of
Speaker 1: times you threw the ball in college to you know,
Speaker 1: having a six touchdown pass game and the whole continuous
Speaker 1: development of this offense. Yeah, so my first year I
Speaker 1: could relate to the offense Jim used to run, just
Speaker 1: run heavy offense, pound pound the rock. And then second year,
Speaker 1: obviously being in the shotgun, a lot more open it
Speaker 1: up in the past game, a lot more options out
Speaker 1: of the shotgun downfield throws. And you've kind of seen
Speaker 1: how the offense has evolved from year one from year
Speaker 1: two to me and just been able to get better
Speaker 1: and improve my game at MS skills and it's going
Speaker 1: to continue to open up and just continue to evolve.
Speaker 1: But uh, it's been fun to see. And I really
Speaker 1: wish I could have watched Jim play in the offense
Speaker 1: like ours and uh and just tear it up and
Speaker 1: throw the ball down the field and use that arm.
Speaker 1: You know you think about you know, you guys are
Speaker 1: unique because Jim was drafted before I came to the
Speaker 1: Bears and then miss drafting the position you were in. Man,
Speaker 1: there's a lot of attachment to hope when you guys
Speaker 1: get drafted by the Chicago Bears in the position you have. Jim,
Speaker 1: it was a lot of years before there was a
Speaker 1: successful quarterback, and Mitch. You know the circumstance here. Both
Speaker 1: of you guys get drafted with all the hope in
Speaker 1: the world. You know you're in the end. NBA, you
Speaker 1: get drafted first, you may never see the court. Baseball,
Speaker 1: you get drafted you they may never see the field.
Speaker 1: You guys are drafted where you're drafted, you bring a
Speaker 1: lot of hope that's attached to that position. Is that
Speaker 1: motivating or is that pressure for both of you guys? Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think it's motivating because obviously it's a dream come
Speaker 1: true to get drafted as high as you do, and
Speaker 1: then you know you're gonna start because they take you
Speaker 1: that high and you're gonna be put in eventually. So
Speaker 1: you just prepare yourself as much as possible and then
Speaker 1: when the opportunity comes, you just try to make the
Speaker 1: most of it. But it's amazing that I think it
Speaker 1: gives you a lot of confidence as a player that
Speaker 1: you see a team that when they pick you that high,
Speaker 1: that they believe in your abilities, they believe in who
Speaker 1: you are as a person, and they just want to
Speaker 1: see you go out there, play your game and do
Speaker 1: the best you possibly can. But I think the two
Speaker 1: things I learned in Chicago is that you got you
Speaker 1: just gotta play with a lot of confidence, and then
Speaker 1: you gotta have thick skin, and you just gotta continue
Speaker 1: to give it all, improve your game, put your heart
Speaker 1: and to this, uh into practices and and love the
Speaker 1: fans and win games and they'll love you back. Yea,
Speaker 1: when you got drafted, you know, you know you're talking
Speaker 1: about George Hallis and the whole crew that you were
Speaker 1: drafted by. Yeah, I had to. I had to deal
Speaker 1: with mister Hollis when I first came here, and uh
Speaker 1: I felt like I was lucky because I didn't have
Speaker 1: a guy like John Elway or Dan Marino to sit behind.
Speaker 1: I had Bob Avellini and Vince Evans where the qbs
Speaker 1: when I got here, and uh so there was pressure
Speaker 1: not only for me to play, but I put a
Speaker 1: lot of pressure on myself. I felt that I was
Speaker 1: a better quarterback even as a rookie. And uh I
Speaker 1: think I started the third game that year, and and
Speaker 1: and pretty much after that. But it took a while.
Speaker 1: Um it took a while for them to understand who
Speaker 1: I was a coach. Dick and I we fought quite
Speaker 1: a bit um, but I think he finally understood that
Speaker 1: I was trying to win ball games. I wasn't doing
Speaker 1: things to make him mad. I mean, you were in
Speaker 1: those huddle a lot, and uh, he was sending in
Speaker 1: plays that even knew wouldn't work. So it wasn't It
Speaker 1: wasn't me trying to upset him. It was just me
Speaker 1: trying to win games. And we had different philosophy on
Speaker 1: how to do that. And I kept telling him, Look,
Speaker 1: we don't need to run into a brick wall on
Speaker 1: the all day long. You know, Walter Walter was a
Speaker 1: hell of a receiver too. We could have used him
Speaker 1: a lot more out of the backfield, which I tried
Speaker 1: wanted to do for years. But we finally started getting
Speaker 1: into that about eighty four and eighty five, and then
Speaker 1: things started rolling. When you look at that, when you
Speaker 1: look at that picture, is that a promotion picture? Because
Speaker 1: you look like a little kid that's trying on one
Speaker 1: of those tops uniforms that you used to buy all
Speaker 1: in one package. Yeah, it looks like I was a
Speaker 1: fan just getting a picture right there. Yeah, I was.
Speaker 1: I was pretty young. They're bad haircutting everything. But yeah,
Speaker 1: that was that was interesting. Golf carts back then. That's
Speaker 1: pretty sweet. Well, Mitch, Mitch probably didn't have a guy
Speaker 1: when he got drafted tell him that he was too small,
Speaker 1: that he should go to Canada. That's what mister Hollis
Speaker 1: told me. That the weird part of it though, because
Speaker 1: they bring you in, they show your loving they tell you, well,
Speaker 1: you know, you're not exactly what we'd like you to
Speaker 1: be at the quarterback position. But you know, that had
Speaker 1: to be tough to hear. I couldn't hear words you
Speaker 1: just said. All right, I said, it had to be
Speaker 1: pretty tough to hear that right from Oh yeah, I
Speaker 1: mean I just I was just drafted the fifth player
Speaker 1: and taking in the first round. And then I get
Speaker 1: here to Chicago four hours later and I got out
Speaker 1: of a limo with a beer that kind of caused
Speaker 1: a stink, but um, you know, yeah, I waited for
Speaker 1: mister Alice for about an hour and then he finally
Speaker 1: I finally got to meet him, and he the first
Speaker 1: thing he said was you're you're too small. You don't
Speaker 1: see very well. You got a bad arm. He said,
Speaker 1: maybe you should go to Canada, and I said, well,
Speaker 1: why the hell did you draft me? Old guy? You know,
Speaker 1: I said, who's in her scouting department? And so they were.
Speaker 1: They were knocking me down from day one. So it
Speaker 1: wasn't it wasn't a whole lot of fun that in
Speaker 1: that first meeting. But the history you put together was significant.
Speaker 1: So what you did and and I think the underrated
Speaker 1: aspect of you is the fact that you are a winner.
Speaker 1: You your emotions on the field told that story right. Oh,
Speaker 1: this this is an emotional game. You gotta play the
Speaker 1: game with with a lot of passion, a lot of fire.
Speaker 1: And uh, I've always had that, you know, when I'm competing,
Speaker 1: I feel that I'm the best and then and I'm
Speaker 1: gonna you know, I'm gonna prove it to you one
Speaker 1: way or the other. So and that's that's the way
Speaker 1: I played my whole career. And here's how he did it,
Speaker 1: ladies and gentlemen, right here, Jim McMahon. The biking game
Speaker 1: is the one that everybody talks about. Oh, that's the
Speaker 1: championship game there. Huh yeah, that's the NFC Championship against
Speaker 1: the Rams. Obviously, that's what I used to could run
Speaker 1: is that when you got your butt bruise on that No,
Speaker 1: that was later in the game. You know, Jim, there
Speaker 1: are many men any pictures of you with Walter, just
Speaker 1: the two of you, and you always got your arm
Speaker 1: around him. You're whispering something there. I found a bunch
Speaker 1: of these during the course of his research. Could you
Speaker 1: explain your relationship with Walter on the field and off
Speaker 1: the field. He was a great teammate. You know, he
Speaker 1: did his job. He never said a word, never said
Speaker 1: give me the ball. He told me my first start
Speaker 1: in my rookie year. I changed the play early in
Speaker 1: the game that hadn't It wasn't in the game plan
Speaker 1: that week. But it's a play that you run a
Speaker 1: thousand times in training camp. You should know the play
Speaker 1: because I got up there. It was third and I
Speaker 1: think it was third and nine, and everybody knows we're
Speaker 1: gonna run sweep with Walter on third and long. So
Speaker 1: they had nine guys on this side of the field,
Speaker 1: and I just changed it to a simple off tackle
Speaker 1: play to the other side. And my left guard grabbed
Speaker 1: me after the play and said, you got any more
Speaker 1: surprises for me? This isn't even a game plan. I said, well,
Speaker 1: just keep your ears open because I'm not running into
Speaker 1: a brick wall. And Walter grabbed me right after that
Speaker 1: to keep doing what you're doing. He said, you're making
Speaker 1: us better. And he goes, I don't want to run
Speaker 1: into that either, So I guess he wasn't used to guys,
Speaker 1: you know, changing plays and and and rather than run
Speaker 1: into a brick we're all run the other way. It's
Speaker 1: not that difficult to do. All quarterbacks have that urge
Speaker 1: a little bit or maybe you're not there yet. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I don't think I'm there yet. I'm not gonna change
Speaker 1: Coach Nage's plays. Um he calls. He calls pretty good plays,
Speaker 1: and uh, Coachnege thinks exactly like I think me and
Speaker 1: Jim do you think you think like a quarterback? If
Speaker 1: there's nine guys on the left side, you gonta run
Speaker 1: the ball over there? You you go where the defense
Speaker 1: and you take what the defenses give you. Um, where
Speaker 1: it's open, you check it down, take a shot when
Speaker 1: you can, but take what the defense gives you and
Speaker 1: try to keep him off balance and uh, keep him guessing.
Speaker 1: Match in the highlight. You just saw McMahon the Super
Speaker 1: Bowl the first play to start the second half. Jim
Speaker 1: came into the huddle and said, look at you guys,
Speaker 1: if you show me a good run fate, this is
Speaker 1: gonna be a big play. And you saw the result.
Speaker 1: It was a big play to Willie Golf. Now you
Speaker 1: go to the line of scrimmage, you got more than
Speaker 1: one play call. Is that predictability happen for you or
Speaker 1: is it more predictability according to what the defense shows you?
Speaker 1: I think it's more what the defense shows us. We
Speaker 1: have a lot of options within each play that we
Speaker 1: go to a line of scrimmage and we have a
Speaker 1: bass play, but it could change a route, protection and
Speaker 1: scheme based on what the defense has showing us. And
Speaker 1: we have a quick quick adjustment that the line of
Speaker 1: scrimmage that what they give us, and we go into
Speaker 1: a play and then they show us something else. Then
Speaker 1: we change it really quick and we say, okay, this
Speaker 1: is gonna work based on what the defense has given us.
Speaker 1: We just change it, roll with it and execute it,
Speaker 1: and everyone does our jobs and then we're clicking. Mitch
Speaker 1: the moment you got drafted, explain to everybody how you
Speaker 1: felt the circumstances surround it, and just the whole process
Speaker 1: of the recruitment of Mitch Traubiski by Ryan Pace and
Speaker 1: his staff. Yeah, it was crazy. I actually got a
Speaker 1: pretty good story. I gotta thank Jim for helping me
Speaker 1: get to Chicago. So throughout the draft process, I was
Speaker 1: meeting with um different teams. I didn't know who's gonna
Speaker 1: draft me, obviously, and the Chicago Bears came to North
Speaker 1: Carolina and we kind of had a secret dinner because
Speaker 1: they didn't want anybody to know that they were interested
Speaker 1: in picking me. I had no idea they were interested.
Speaker 1: So we we go out to dinner with the coaches,
Speaker 1: Ryan Pace and the staff, and uh, I made a
Speaker 1: dinner reservation at one of the nice restaurants in Chapel Hill,
Speaker 1: and I made the reservation under James McMahon, the last
Speaker 1: Super Bowl quarterback for Chicago Bears. And so I think
Speaker 1: Ryan Pace and the staff they really liked that. I
Speaker 1: know I did. And and uh, oh, coach Dico, what's up?
Speaker 1: What are you doing? You should have let Jim throw
Speaker 1: the ball more? And am right. So yeah, I had
Speaker 1: to thank Jim for that. And that was one of
Speaker 1: the cool stories that I got that I used his
Speaker 1: name as a reservation and uh, it just so happened
Speaker 1: I get to play for the same franchise that he did,
Speaker 1: and I just know when I got picked. The draft
Speaker 1: was in Philadelphia and it was like it was kind
Speaker 1: of a whirldwind because the team forgot to call me
Speaker 1: and I just heard my name, Roger Goodellson, my name
Speaker 1: was on stage, and it was just I knew it
Speaker 1: was a dream come true. And I just I really
Speaker 1: knew it. I was in the right spot and in
Speaker 1: Chicago has really been home since that moment. It's vitally
Speaker 1: important for a player to feel at home because you
Speaker 1: don't know where you're gonna go. You really don't. You
Speaker 1: want to go certain places, I'm sure in your mind's
Speaker 1: eye and then your heart of hearts and Jim you
Speaker 1: may have felt the same way. But it has to
Speaker 1: feel right for you to thrive. And as we said
Speaker 1: last night, you came in at a time when they
Speaker 1: needed some a new quote of paint they needed. It's
Speaker 1: it's a brand new transition. It's a ground floor and
Speaker 1: you're building from there. Yeah. Absolutely, you come into an
Speaker 1: organization and me coming out of college, I only had
Speaker 1: one mindset that we were gonna win I didn't know when,
Speaker 1: but I knew at one point we were going to
Speaker 1: be successful. We're gonna thrive being here in Chicago playing
Speaker 1: for the Bears, and that was the like in my mind,
Speaker 1: that was the only option. And at first it wasn't happening.
Speaker 1: We were struggling a little bit, going through some adversity,
Speaker 1: and you know that's gonna happen. But you just have
Speaker 1: that mindset that this adversity, these losing games, it's not
Speaker 1: gonna last. Hard work, dedication, and perseverances are the things
Speaker 1: that get you through that. And a year later, we
Speaker 1: we we flipped the script and we start winning games.
Speaker 1: Had a pretty good season and we're just trying to
Speaker 1: build off that going forward. But you just got to
Speaker 1: continue to have that mindset that you're gonna come in
Speaker 1: here and thrive and get the Chicago Bears organization back
Speaker 1: to where it needs to be in that's winning football games.
Speaker 1: I've said this many times Jim and Tie Mitch last
Speaker 1: year and I always refer to this, but he did
Speaker 1: an interview with a gentleman before the season, before training
Speaker 1: camp started, and he basically set the tone for the
Speaker 1: entire season. It was a very convicted passionate explanation of
Speaker 1: what he envisions for the Chicago Bears. He didn't say
Speaker 1: it was gonna happen in twenty eighteen, but it certainly
Speaker 1: was a big step in that direction with a twelve
Speaker 1: points season in the playoffs. But he sees that picture
Speaker 1: right there. I found this picture to be quite revealing
Speaker 1: because it's the super Bowl trophy that those two guys
Speaker 1: helped win, and it's like you're peering into the future there.
Speaker 1: It's what you want, It's what every player wants. Is
Speaker 1: that what you're feeling right there when you walk in
Speaker 1: as a brand new draft pick looking at that, Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's pretty surreal looking at that. You walk into the
Speaker 1: Bears facility and you see all the history and you
Speaker 1: just feel very lucky to be a part of it.
Speaker 1: And looking at that trophy, I mean, that's what every
Speaker 1: kid dreams of. And just me being goal oriented and
Speaker 1: shooting as high as possible, you think attaining that is
Speaker 1: definitely it's within reachs if we just continue to work,
Speaker 1: continue stick to the plan, believing each other, and just
Speaker 1: keep working. But that's the goal that we're going after
Speaker 1: this year. And the other cool thing about the picture
Speaker 1: I think is the quote in the back from George Hollis,
Speaker 1: nobody who ever gave his best regretted it. And I
Speaker 1: think if you do that and any aspect of life,
Speaker 1: whatever you do, do with everything you possibly have, and
Speaker 1: you won't have any regrets. So that's what we're doing.
Speaker 1: And I think if you do that, then you get
Speaker 1: a little closer to that trophy. You know, Hey, Jim,
Speaker 1: we see that picture of Mitch. We saw that picture
Speaker 1: of you sitting with Allie and Dick. You guys both
Speaker 1: up like you're eleven years old. How do you get
Speaker 1: the patience between when you get drafted in your first
Speaker 1: start and do you do you guys both remember your
Speaker 1: first start, because I think anybody that gets drafted in
Speaker 1: the NFL, I'm drafted here to be a start or
Speaker 1: I'm gonna be a leader. What took that time in
Speaker 1: between you and your first start? Well, like I said,
Speaker 1: like I said earlier, I didn't have the you know,
Speaker 1: Hall of famers in front of me, so I felt
Speaker 1: that I should be playing right away. But after going
Speaker 1: through training camp, I wasn't ready week one. I knew that,
Speaker 1: and the coach, Dicka knew that. I believe Bob Babbolini
Speaker 1: started the first game. I think Vince Evans started the
Speaker 1: second game, and I started the second half of the
Speaker 1: second game. And then my first start was against the
Speaker 1: Detroit Lions, and that's something I'll never forget. We had
Speaker 1: to go I think we had to go to the
Speaker 1: length of the field to kick a field goal to
Speaker 1: win that game. But we did win it. But my
Speaker 1: first I think the first throw I'd had was I
Speaker 1: threw a pick six to the strong safety. So I
Speaker 1: didn't have a real good start, but Dicka stayed with me,
Speaker 1: and I think he knew that he knew that I
Speaker 1: knew what I was doing, or I wish he would
Speaker 1: have told me that, because he thought I was doing
Speaker 1: everything to make him mad. But I think he finally
Speaker 1: understood I got the game. I mean, coming from the
Speaker 1: office that I came to fuming college. I mean, I
Speaker 1: was so used to seeing pretty much anything on the
Speaker 1: defensive side of the ball, so nothing really surprised me
Speaker 1: in the pros, and I think he finally realized that
Speaker 1: I actually didn't know what I was doing. Mitch, how
Speaker 1: about you in between getting here in your first start,
Speaker 1: impatient or was it the time that you needed to
Speaker 1: grow I mean, I think as a competitor, I wanted
Speaker 1: to start from day one, but I believe I started
Speaker 1: a week five against the Minnesota Vikings on Monday Night football,
Speaker 1: which is a very memorable start. I mean, as a kid,
Speaker 1: you dreamed to play on Monday night football, and to
Speaker 1: go against the Minnesota Vikings at home at Soldier Field
Speaker 1: was absolutely incredible. We came up short, but I threw
Speaker 1: my first touchdown a tipped pass to Zach Miller, so
Speaker 1: that worked out. But I think it was a little
Speaker 1: tougher for my development coming in because I mean, all
Speaker 1: through a training camp and even leading up to that week,
Speaker 1: I was taking reps with a third and second team,
Speaker 1: just preparing leading up to that point, and all of
Speaker 1: a sudden, for the first time, I'm about to play
Speaker 1: a game with the starters, and the first time I'm
Speaker 1: getting reps with them was that week. So I thought
Speaker 1: it could have helped just getting reps with them more
Speaker 1: early on from the beginning. But the more reps, I
Speaker 1: feel like I get better, which each and every single
Speaker 1: rep coming in the game, coming in practice, and being
Speaker 1: out there going against the starters, especially going against our defense.
Speaker 1: They just prepare so well weekend and week out, and
Speaker 1: it's it's a continual journey just trying to keep him better.
Speaker 1: You know, there's nothing can be as more humbling as
Speaker 1: watching tape with all of your peers after you play
Speaker 1: a game, especially when your first start. Jim, we used
Speaker 1: to sitting there and Dick would run the projector and
Speaker 1: he would take it easy on nobody. How was difficult
Speaker 1: to you in that film session? And how And I'm
Speaker 1: gonna ask Mitch you the same thing. How was that
Speaker 1: first film session after being the quarterback and with your peers?
Speaker 1: How was it for you? Jim? Well, as you know,
Speaker 1: was always pretty volatile. So um, I don't really remember
Speaker 1: the first couple of sessions. I just do. I remember
Speaker 1: the sound of the projector used to make because we
Speaker 1: could sleep during that and make a lot of noise.
Speaker 1: But now they have this video tape. Everything's quiet. You
Speaker 1: can't sleep anymore, so you actually hear them yelling at you.
Speaker 1: But I don't really remember. I know he got on
Speaker 1: me a couple of times for certain things, but for
Speaker 1: the most part, he didn't. He didn't really jump my
Speaker 1: button in the film sessions. Yeah, no one's safe in meetings.
Speaker 1: Nobody's sleeping and uh, it's at first you're watching film
Speaker 1: as a quarterback and you're just listening to what coach says.
Speaker 1: But after year one, after you two, now being in
Speaker 1: this offense, I know exactly what everyone's supposed to do.
Speaker 1: I'm able to be more vocal, tell the receivers what
Speaker 1: I'm looking for, how I want them to run their
Speaker 1: routes and where where they need to be within the timing.
Speaker 1: And it really just helps get everyone on the same
Speaker 1: page that I'm able to coach them. But same time,
Speaker 1: also take criticism from coach and I want him to
Speaker 1: coach me hard. If I do something wrong, I want
Speaker 1: him to call me out in front of the group,
Speaker 1: make sure they know that I messed up or I
Speaker 1: did it right, or make sure that they messed up
Speaker 1: or when they did it right. So it's just constant
Speaker 1: communication and there's no hard feelings in the film room.
Speaker 1: We're all here for one goal and that's to get better.
Speaker 1: So if coaches talking to you, listen, correct it, you
Speaker 1: write your note, You're you're make sure you're taking notes
Speaker 1: throughout the whole time, writing things down and getting better.
Speaker 1: And we got a lot of brilliant coaches and they're
Speaker 1: also they're not just coaches, they're really good teachers. So
Speaker 1: they know how to say things in a way that
Speaker 1: hits everyone's brain. If you don't understand the first time,
Speaker 1: they can say it in a different way to make
Speaker 1: sure everybody gets it. And everyone's on the same page.
Speaker 1: And there's no egos. It's not who I know more
Speaker 1: than you, you know more than me. It's just let's
Speaker 1: figure out what's what works for this offense, where we
Speaker 1: can be at our best, where we can keep rolling,
Speaker 1: and we're in this together, so let's make sure everyone's
Speaker 1: on the same page, and let's just go and get better.
Speaker 1: By the way, there's a yep, give a hand, Give
Speaker 1: m a hand. You guys have the ability to write
Speaker 1: down questions, and we'll take your questions up here and
Speaker 1: read them to these guys and about the final ten
Speaker 1: minutes of our seminar here today, and I hope you're
Speaker 1: enjoying the conversation, and we're gonna have a whole day
Speaker 1: of it here at our event. And check out this
Speaker 1: entire facility. It's wrought with bears, history in the building
Speaker 1: and great venue to have this event. So or you
Speaker 1: appreciate you guys, being here today when I was going
Speaker 1: through this stuff and Tom and I were trying to
Speaker 1: put together a plan for this Jim, it's hard to
Speaker 1: capture somebody's career in fifty minutes and yours just starting.
Speaker 1: But whether it was your own idea of how you
Speaker 1: wanted to be perceived or the reality of it all
Speaker 1: going through some of the mag you are on a
Speaker 1: lot of magazine covers, so you had to poster the
Speaker 1: Mad Mac poster, Rolling Stone, the rock and Roll quarterback,
Speaker 1: the Mecadic Dude, a Maverick. Did you embrace all that?
Speaker 1: Did you? Did you feel that was reality or did
Speaker 1: or was it just how you were perceived by the outside.
Speaker 1: I didn't. I didn't make up any I didn't make
Speaker 1: up the punky QB lyrics. I didn't make up the
Speaker 1: A lot of the things that I saw in the media.
Speaker 1: I did stuff due to make myself laugh and to
Speaker 1: make my teammates laugh, and to have a good time, because, uh,
Speaker 1: you know, you go through these things. You get to
Speaker 1: work at eight in the morning every day, you get
Speaker 1: home at six, and you're with these guys all day long,
Speaker 1: and a lot of it's boring, So you got to
Speaker 1: try to have a little bit of fun. And that's
Speaker 1: what I try to do. Whether whether they took that
Speaker 1: I'm being a maverick or I'm being a crazy whatever,
Speaker 1: I didn't care. It didn't It wasn't going to affect
Speaker 1: my on the field play. And that's what I told
Speaker 1: these guys. So you could do whatever you know, act
Speaker 1: however you want, but on Sunday, you gotta play, and
Speaker 1: if you do that, everything kind of everything else fades away.
Speaker 1: Here's one thing. It did spill over to us because
Speaker 1: us as our offensive line, we all got add to
Speaker 1: shoot contracts. We all got Honda scooters for not for
Speaker 1: a good price, and we all got a lot of
Speaker 1: Revo sunglasses. All because of the popularity that Jim created
Speaker 1: for those companies. He was able to spill it over
Speaker 1: to the teammates. So it was never a one man show.
Speaker 1: It was being a part of the Bears team and
Speaker 1: how it's spilled over to everybody. And I think we
Speaker 1: all were super appreciative of it. But as Jim said,
Speaker 1: when it came to Sunday, you know, all that stuff
Speaker 1: was just the extras and it was about winning games.
Speaker 1: Here's the end result of that. So just going through
Speaker 1: all the statistical analysis of your career, there was a
Speaker 1: stretch that when you were the starting quarterback, you won
Speaker 1: twenty nine to thirty one games. During one stretch you
Speaker 1: had a one point loss tooth point loss at Denver
Speaker 1: and the other one in Minnesota. I mean, you hit
Speaker 1: your stride. If do you ever think about the fact
Speaker 1: that if only it could have just beat that injury
Speaker 1: bug a little bit, I mean, your record as a
Speaker 1: starting quarterback was already great, it would have been spectacular. Well.
Speaker 1: I mean I was playing hurt when I first when
Speaker 1: I first got here, I mean in nineteen eighty four,
Speaker 1: I played with a broken throwing hand for the four
Speaker 1: or five weeks, and people asked me why I couldn't
Speaker 1: throw a spiral. I couldn't feel the ball. You know,
Speaker 1: they shoot my hand this bone here, they shoot it
Speaker 1: all around the bone, and they'd hit a nerve, so
Speaker 1: I'd be numbed to my elbow. So balls will be
Speaker 1: going like this. I mean, they're still getting in the vicinity,
Speaker 1: but they weren't pretty. And I played with that until
Speaker 1: I injured my kidney later in the season, and that
Speaker 1: ended that in nineteen eighty four for me. But the
Speaker 1: following year I missed I think four or five games
Speaker 1: that year because of my shoulder was was was starting
Speaker 1: to get bad. And then, if I'm not mistaken it,
Speaker 1: did you regret playing through that particular injury. I think
Speaker 1: you were quarded as saying that's the one injury you
Speaker 1: regret well in nineteen eighty six, Yes, because after the
Speaker 1: first ball game I should not have played. My shoulder
Speaker 1: was gone. I had no labor. My arm was coming
Speaker 1: in out of the socket every time I moved it,
Speaker 1: and I kept telling them that. I kept telling the coach,
Speaker 1: the trainers and the doctors, and they kept saying there
Speaker 1: was nothing wrong. So I kept trying to play with it.
Speaker 1: You know, they kept shooting it every week, and I
Speaker 1: you know, once it's numb, you know, you never know
Speaker 1: where the hell the ball is going to go. But
Speaker 1: I won the six starts that I had that year,
Speaker 1: But I should have never been playing. That's the one
Speaker 1: I really regret. But you know, I kept trying. And
Speaker 1: the following year I missed the first half the season.
Speaker 1: I was still recovering from my shoulder surgery. My arm.
Speaker 1: They told me it would take me two years to
Speaker 1: play again. I was playing in ten months. So the
Speaker 1: rehab was three times a day, and to try to
Speaker 1: get this thing back into shape was was tough. I
Speaker 1: mean every time i'd throw a ball, if I was
Speaker 1: trying to throw it, if I'd look at you and
Speaker 1: throw the ball, the ball would go that way. So
Speaker 1: I had to retrain all the muscles and everything, and
Speaker 1: it was it was tough. But I wouldn't have played
Speaker 1: after that. Maybe that would have I could have stayed
Speaker 1: here in my whole career after that, because I kept
Speaker 1: getting questioned, not only from Dikka, but some other teammates
Speaker 1: had mentioned some things, and I'm like, and here, I
Speaker 1: just played three years with a broken hand, and I
Speaker 1: was actually playing two minutes with a torn kidney. So
Speaker 1: why they were questioning whether or not I was hurt
Speaker 1: was beyond me. Well, I think maybe that's stars with Mitch.
Speaker 1: Do you know why Jim wear sunglasses. He had an
Speaker 1: injury to his eye when he was younger. He stuck
Speaker 1: himself in the eye with a turkey fork when he
Speaker 1: was a kid. And wasn't your brother that said, Hey,
Speaker 1: don't say anything to mom. Oh she's gonna be mad
Speaker 1: at us. No, I said, don't say anything to mom,
Speaker 1: because yeah, it was it was. It was after school
Speaker 1: one day and my brothers and I were playing Cowboys
Speaker 1: and Indians. We didn't have Xbox and all that back
Speaker 1: in the day, so I had a gun holster tied
Speaker 1: to my knee and I couldn't get the knot out,
Speaker 1: so I wouldn't got a fork, and I was sitting
Speaker 1: there with a fork like this and went boom. And
Speaker 1: that just proves the hands quicker than the eye, because
Speaker 1: two prongs with dead center and just kind of shredded
Speaker 1: my eyeball and I pulled it out right away, and
Speaker 1: it hurt like hell, believe me, but I'm sitting there whimpering.
Speaker 1: I went and clean the fork so my mom wouldn't
Speaker 1: get mad, and I told her about two hours later
Speaker 1: what happened, and she freaked out. And we only had
Speaker 1: one car at the time. My dad was at work,
Speaker 1: so I sat there probably about six hours before I
Speaker 1: went to the hospital. And then I got there later
Speaker 1: that evening. The doctor wanted to operate wide away because
Speaker 1: it hit tore my eye, and he said, now I
Speaker 1: can't do it because I had just eaten something and
Speaker 1: they're not going to pump a six year old stomach
Speaker 1: to do an operation. So I had to wait till
Speaker 1: the morning. I just remember my dad all night talking
Speaker 1: to the doctor saying, just please save his eye. He
Speaker 1: didn't want me to have a glass eye. So, you know,
Speaker 1: this whole my whole career, this was my blind side.
Speaker 1: I didn't see anything over here. I could see this
Speaker 1: guy behind me, but not right here. And but I learned.
Speaker 1: I grew up with it. How'd you do that? Oh?
Speaker 1: I just I learned from it. I mean this happened
Speaker 1: when I was six, So I grew up not you know,
Speaker 1: having good depth, good depth perception or being able to
Speaker 1: see from this side, but just something I learned to
Speaker 1: deal with and never really they considered it a handicap.
Speaker 1: All right, let's throw some missed Trabisky highlights on the
Speaker 1: screen and see what this young man has done in
Speaker 1: a very short period of time. I mean, the growth
Speaker 1: comes every day, so it's that's expected, right for you.
Speaker 1: But if you could just kind of capture what eighteen
Speaker 1: did for you, Yeah, eighteen, he's the heck of a player.
Speaker 1: I mean, the one thing that pops out, no, no, oh,
Speaker 1: this eighteen season My bad eighteen. Taylor Gabriel shout out
Speaker 1: Taylor Gabriel specific, more specific questions will help. Twenty eighteen,
Speaker 1: it was incredible. I mean, obviously you have gang coach
Speaker 1: Nagy and the staff he brought, the new offense, just
Speaker 1: learning so much from them, Um, but it really started
Speaker 1: with just like an attitude in a mindset that we
Speaker 1: were gonna turn it around and we're gonna win games.
Speaker 1: It started in the locker room. It really started out
Speaker 1: at practice, just our my and say we're going to
Speaker 1: compete every day and it didn't matter who lined up
Speaker 1: against us. We're we're gonna give him our best and
Speaker 1: we're gonna come out of victorious. And learned a lot
Speaker 1: about UM defenses, just how how different they defend our offense.
Speaker 1: We got a lot of different weapons on the outside now,
Speaker 1: so it's really hard to just key on one guy
Speaker 1: when you got so much talent around you. And if
Speaker 1: we just if everyone exec continue to spread the ball around,
Speaker 1: I think we're gonna be really tough offensive stop. But
Speaker 1: for me, uh and I know, I think Jim roll
Speaker 1: Gree the most important guys in the offensive, the offensive
Speaker 1: line in the center, the guys up front. They helped
Speaker 1: take care of the quarterback, keep the guys off us,
Speaker 1: and open up holes in the run game and and
Speaker 1: and give us time to throw the ball. So I mean,
Speaker 1: if there's a claim pocket, um, we're gonna find someone
Speaker 1: to open and we're gonna put it in the right spot.
Speaker 1: And if they create holes, that just keeps the defense
Speaker 1: honest in the past game as well. So it all
Speaker 1: starts up front. And we were just a really tight
Speaker 1: knit group. And I think that's what's going to separate
Speaker 1: us from everyone else, how tight we are as teammates.
Speaker 1: It didn't get lost on me when you're at the
Speaker 1: White Sox game the other days with the whole offensive
Speaker 1: line out there throwing out the first pitch. You hung
Speaker 1: with them. Your relationship with the offensive line was legendary.
Speaker 1: They loved you, you loved them. Is that critical? Is
Speaker 1: that critical to have that symbiotic relationship off the field
Speaker 1: as well as on the field. Well, I think it is.
Speaker 1: I think they'll they'll understand you better. Um, you know,
Speaker 1: we got to we did our things. Every Thursday night,
Speaker 1: we go out and it was whoever's turned to buy.
Speaker 1: They'd picked the restaurant. And then we had just started
Speaker 1: out basically just the old lineman and myself and by
Speaker 1: the end of the year, We've had probably thirty guys
Speaker 1: at dinner on Thursday night because they heard up much
Speaker 1: fun we were having, and Dick I heard about it too.
Speaker 1: So Friday morning practice was always pretty tough. You know.
Speaker 1: One thing Jim's relationship with the offensive line. So we
Speaker 1: get our uniform on, we had all go on the
Speaker 1: back and then we had tightened up our sleeves and
Speaker 1: put them away. So one day Jim comes before a game,
Speaker 1: he goes, hey, do that to me. Now we got
Speaker 1: mcmahnon there. He's got his sleeves rolled up like he's
Speaker 1: an offensive lineman. And it is the different relationships. When
Speaker 1: you see Cody Whitehair escort Mitch in to the end
Speaker 1: zone on his run, you know, it is that camaraderie
Speaker 1: that develops in the hard times of the games, but
Speaker 1: in the good times on the practice field and Mitch.
Speaker 1: It's a continuous development, especially when you have these guys
Speaker 1: like Cody and Kyle and Charles Leno and stuff and
Speaker 1: Bobby Massy. I've been around for a long time in
Speaker 1: the development of James Daniels. Yeah, it's awesome. And I
Speaker 1: think the first thing I had to do coming in
Speaker 1: here of just being a younger guys just earned the
Speaker 1: respect one with my work ethic and then too, I
Speaker 1: think just who I am as a person, and it's
Speaker 1: all about being authentic and genuine and developed real relationship
Speaker 1: with them that go beyond football. Just hanging out with
Speaker 1: them off the field, getting into them and their family,
Speaker 1: and just really becoming brothers not just on the field,
Speaker 1: but for life outside the field. And I think that
Speaker 1: it just translates to the success on the field that
Speaker 1: you're gonna no matter what happens, if if everything is
Speaker 1: going really well or if it's not going to well
Speaker 1: throughout the game, you're gonna stick with the guys right
Speaker 1: next to you and you're just gonna go out there
Speaker 1: have fun and make plays happen. And and uh, I
Speaker 1: think I just developed a relationship to in my alignment
Speaker 1: that it's all love. It's it truly is. We are
Speaker 1: truly are the family, and they want to protect me
Speaker 1: and I want to and I'm gonna do everything I
Speaker 1: possibly can on the field or off the field to
Speaker 1: make sure that they know that I have their back
Speaker 1: as well. Are there. We can't we can't do anything
Speaker 1: as quarterbacks or or receivers or running backs without these
Speaker 1: guys and it's it's feudal to think anything differently. Games
Speaker 1: games are won and loss with the offensive line, and
Speaker 1: our guys didn't get enough credit. These guys led the
Speaker 1: league and rushing three straight years, which had never been
Speaker 1: done and I don't think it's been done since. And
Speaker 1: everybody knew we were going to run the ball. And
Speaker 1: that's that's a tribute to the five guys up front,
Speaker 1: because even though there's eight men in the box, we
Speaker 1: still got it done. And that's these guys were pretty
Speaker 1: damn good. Yeah, like I said, we can't do anything
Speaker 1: without him. If you we have one guy that doesn't
Speaker 1: do his job, you're gonna get You're gonna get smacked.
Speaker 1: So five guys in cohesion along with the tight ending backs,
Speaker 1: I mean they they went and lose ball games. It's
Speaker 1: never gonna change. Did you play the quarterback with an
Speaker 1: offensive lineman's mentality? And do you find yourself doing that
Speaker 1: at times? Mitch in games as well? So I just
Speaker 1: I played the game the only way I knew how,
Speaker 1: whether that be a lineman or what. But I wasn't
Speaker 1: afraid of contact. I've always been one of the smaller
Speaker 1: guys on every team I've ever played on. So I
Speaker 1: was never afraid of of getting hit or getting hurt.
Speaker 1: That's just that's just part of the game. But I
Speaker 1: don't think I put myself above them. I was part
Speaker 1: of them, and that's why I think, why why we
Speaker 1: were successful. Yeah, I think I've learned. I mean, I
Speaker 1: hear from you guys too, Like I gotta slide, I
Speaker 1: gotta get down. But as a competitor, you want to
Speaker 1: you want to get those yards. You want to do
Speaker 1: Everyone else on the field, especially alignment, they're sacrificing their
Speaker 1: bodies for the betterment of the team. And when you
Speaker 1: get a chance to carry the ball or pick up
Speaker 1: extra yardage, as a competitor, you want to do that. Um.
Speaker 1: But you just got to continue to keep the big
Speaker 1: picture in mind. And for me, that's staying healthy, getting
Speaker 1: down and playing the next play. Um. And no one
Speaker 1: when the journeys over, especially when the guy when you're
Speaker 1: carrying the ball, the defenders, they're they're coming to take
Speaker 1: you out of the game. They're trying to take your
Speaker 1: head off and and uh and make sure to that
Speaker 1: you know that they know that you're out there. And
Speaker 1: uh So it's it's a learning process. But at the
Speaker 1: same time, like Jim said, we're going to play the
Speaker 1: game the way we know how, and that's just balls
Speaker 1: to the wall, picking up extra yardage, keeping plays alive,
Speaker 1: and doing what I need to do for my team
Speaker 1: to make sure that we're successful. And with emotion, which
Speaker 1: you definitely play with emotion when you when when you
Speaker 1: guys had a successful play highlight after highlight, you got
Speaker 1: an ear to ear grin and you're wired up and
Speaker 1: at last touchdown to run you sew on the video
Speaker 1: against Detroit. I've talked to you about that particular play.
Speaker 1: It's like you got on the end zone. You had
Speaker 1: this primal scream. It was almost a symbolic thing for
Speaker 1: you just in a short period of time. You know,
Speaker 1: people there were doubters. There were doubters about you being
Speaker 1: selected that high, and I think that that lives within you,
Speaker 1: doesn't it. Yeah, I do have I don't always show
Speaker 1: it all the time, but I do play this game
Speaker 1: with emotion, and I think it helps for me to
Speaker 1: stay even killed throughout the game so that I'm able
Speaker 1: to be focused. And sometimes my receivers know when I'm
Speaker 1: playing with two Mitch emotions because there like Mitchell, you
Speaker 1: gotta take some off the ball. It's coming into hot
Speaker 1: you're hurting, you're hurting our hands just like put a
Speaker 1: little touch on it so we could catch it. And
Speaker 1: uh so you don't always got to come out that
Speaker 1: fired up. So for me, it's just saying even even killed.
Speaker 1: So I'm focused, locked in, but everyone once a while,
Speaker 1: you just gotta let it out. And that was like
Speaker 1: throughout the season we were being doubted and we're in
Speaker 1: a tough spot. We just continue to win games. And
Speaker 1: after that touchdown and I just wanted to to show
Speaker 1: how far it up I was, and and that's what
Speaker 1: it was. But there's always a time and place for
Speaker 1: showing your emotion. And I think my teammates know, especially
Speaker 1: at practice throughout the games, what you say to them
Speaker 1: the huddle, how you say things um and they can
Speaker 1: see it in your eyes at the end of game.
Speaker 1: You can't see my eyes right now because I got
Speaker 1: these nice sunglasses on. But when you when you step
Speaker 1: into the huddle, when you're on the sidelines, when you're
Speaker 1: a locker room, your your teammates can look you in
Speaker 1: the eyes and they know what you're about. They know
Speaker 1: that you're ready to go. They know that you're confident,
Speaker 1: locked in and there's really no doubts about what's gonna
Speaker 1: happen on the field. Um by looking your eyes and
Speaker 1: knowing how confident that you are that the job's gonna
Speaker 1: get done. So it's all a mindset, it's all attitude
Speaker 1: and sometimes you just gotta let it out and and
Speaker 1: we we feel the fans energy as well, so the
Speaker 1: emotion doesn't stop on the field. You feel it coming
Speaker 1: from the stands trickling down and as a player, you
Speaker 1: just want to you just want to go crazy and
Speaker 1: make big plays. Hey, Jim, So after touchdowns, most of
Speaker 1: us would get aheadbut from you. And that was our
Speaker 1: way of celebrating when you look at the allowing you
Speaker 1: to celebrate any way you want to. Nowadays in the NFL,
Speaker 1: would you have changed that celebration or was the headbut
Speaker 1: fitting of our time? No, I would have changed any
Speaker 1: because that was basically all spontaneous. You know. Now these
Speaker 1: guys are they're practicing all week for their touchdown dance,
Speaker 1: it seems like. So it was just one of those things, Hey,
Speaker 1: let's let's go, let's go get another one. And I
Speaker 1: know a couple of us actually try to knock each
Speaker 1: other out. I know Becker tried to get me a
Speaker 1: few times. I remember my headbutted you one time and
Speaker 1: you didn't have your chin strap on, and your helmet
Speaker 1: came down and hit the top of your nose, and
Speaker 1: it was kind of something. Okay, I got to make
Speaker 1: sure that the quarterback. I'll always be strapped up after
Speaker 1: your score, that's for sure. Tell us a story. How
Speaker 1: you feel about this? Man? Oh man, I can tell
Speaker 1: you the funniest story. The first time I ever snapped
Speaker 1: the ball to Jim wasn't unbelieved. So I literally drive
Speaker 1: from the USFL game on a Saturday night straight through
Speaker 1: to Platteville, Wisconsin on a Monday morning. And so back then,
Speaker 1: the rookies and the quarterbacks would come in a week
Speaker 1: early for camp, and I thought I was going to
Speaker 1: play center, and so I come out to practice faux
Speaker 1: pads and I got a waste belt on. It's called
Speaker 1: a fat belt at the time, and so but I
Speaker 1: didn't have any shorts ms of sweater. I'm a sweater.
Speaker 1: I'm a sweater. So I get down and I'm gonna
Speaker 1: snap the ball. And so I snapped the ball, but
Speaker 1: it hits my sweat and as the splattered everywhere, it's
Speaker 1: it's splattered all throughout Jim's face and he threw the
Speaker 1: ball down and he goes, do you have shorts on?
Speaker 1: And I go, no, mister McMahon, and he goes. Ray
Speaker 1: Early was our equipment manager at the time, and he was, Ray,
Speaker 1: get over here, get in some shorts, put them on,
Speaker 1: and don't ever come out like that again. So that
Speaker 1: was my first experience of My head stunk for a
Speaker 1: week after that. So and I was just there for
Speaker 1: a week because Jay was not in camp yet, and
Speaker 1: so everybody you know, Jay had just come off of
Speaker 1: a Pro Bowl season and he was a center. But
Speaker 1: I was just trying to figure out what my role
Speaker 1: was going to be on this team. But I will
Speaker 1: never forget that as long as I live. It never
Speaker 1: happened again. I don't think I ever wore that belt
Speaker 1: out to practice again. And you know, it kind of
Speaker 1: understood the relationship that the center better have with the quarterback.
Speaker 1: Do you have anything like that any stories with your
Speaker 1: offensive line in your early days here an NFL player? No,
Speaker 1: Thank god, My centers aren't big sweaters, So that's kinda
Speaker 1: I got a better I got a better one than
Speaker 1: the Tommy story. I was playing for the Chargers in
Speaker 1: nineteen eighty nine after I left Chicago, and this one game,
Speaker 1: I get a rookie center and he's also on the
Speaker 1: kickoff return team, so we get the opening kickoff. I
Speaker 1: think we get the ball about the twenty yard line.
Speaker 1: I go into the huddle and we didn't have the
Speaker 1: shotgun formation in San Diego that the coach didn't believe
Speaker 1: in the shotgun. So the center grabbed me and he says, hey,
Speaker 1: if your hands starts to smells, because I just craped
Speaker 1: my pants. Two story, folks, two story. So I burned
Speaker 1: the time out before the game starts. I called time out.
Speaker 1: I'm walking over the sideline and coach handing the head coach,
Speaker 1: he's all, what are you doing? What I said, this
Speaker 1: is exactly why we need the shotgun, I said, your
Speaker 1: boy just crapped his pants and I'm not sticking my
Speaker 1: hand in there until he cleans it out. So he
Speaker 1: had to leave the game for a little while and
Speaker 1: freshen up. And but that's how centers will do you.
Speaker 1: Sometimes you gotta watch out for them. A hand did
Speaker 1: stink for a month after that game. I think We're
Speaker 1: eighties something percent in shotgun last year, so which was
Speaker 1: like third in the league. So I was pretty happy
Speaker 1: about that. Imagine. Indeed, I think another underrated quality that
Speaker 1: you had that you would have actually thrived in this
Speaker 1: era of football as well and in this system, is
Speaker 1: your mobility. You were you. You were mobile, you were athletic.
Speaker 1: Let's show one of the great catches you're gonna see
Speaker 1: by a quarterback in the National Football League. You remember
Speaker 1: this one, big Jim, It'll become It's just that the
Speaker 1: highlight toss twenty nine, throwback toss twenty nine throwback. Here
Speaker 1: we go, break it down. Pay attention. I make a
Speaker 1: good block at the end, wipes out two guys here one, two, Tommy.
Speaker 1: This is one of the greatest catches of all What
Speaker 1: a beauty. Oh, I made it look harder than it was.
Speaker 1: Look how small Jim's next to van Horn. That's the
Speaker 1: biggest human I've ever seen. And this is a true story.
Speaker 1: Keith van Horn was so big that I never stood
Speaker 1: next to him for the national anthem because I didn't
Speaker 1: want the guy across the line looking at me, going, man,
Speaker 1: look how small that guy is. And you know he's
Speaker 1: you know six seven and a half and he put
Speaker 1: his helmet on. He's up the six nine. So you know,
Speaker 1: you look at Keith put his arms around, Jim around
Speaker 1: Jim like a little kid. Mitch put your reporters had
Speaker 1: on or just your inquisitive self. Do you have any
Speaker 1: questions for Jim McMahon, Yeah, I got a question. I
Speaker 1: think for me growing up, my favorite player was Walter
Speaker 1: Payton and us The first ever book I read in
Speaker 1: elementary school was a biography on the life of Walter Payton.
Speaker 1: So I just wanna know if you have what was
Speaker 1: it like playing with him and what was your favorite
Speaker 1: characteristic about Walter. Walter was a great teammate, but I
Speaker 1: mean he was, like I said earlier, he never never
Speaker 1: said give me the ball, was never a selfish player.
Speaker 1: He always did his job and uh, and he did
Speaker 1: it professionally when he when he got in the end zone,
Speaker 1: he just flipped the ball to the referee. There was
Speaker 1: never any you know, dancing around or nothing like that.
Speaker 1: He just he was just a true professional and uh,
Speaker 1: one of the biggest pranksters we've ever had on the team.
Speaker 1: I mean he was always lighting the m eights and
Speaker 1: he put him on a tape, and he'd like tape
Speaker 1: it to the Hollis Hall racquetball court. You had to
Speaker 1: walk by the racquetball court on your way out to practice,
Speaker 1: and those things would be blazing up for about two
Speaker 1: or three minutes. He'd already be out of practice, and
Speaker 1: as guys were walking out, you hear there's big boom
Speaker 1: that scared the hell out of everybody. And hey, you
Speaker 1: gotta tell him about in the Miami Dolphins game when
Speaker 1: Walter had the streak of eight or nine hundred yard
Speaker 1: games and this is the only game we lost. Mitch. Yeah,
Speaker 1: So we're playing playing Miami at Monday night and Mike decides,
Speaker 1: I'm not going to play that night. For summer, I
Speaker 1: missed I guess one one day of practice that week,
Speaker 1: so we said you're not playing. I'm like, okay, you know,
Speaker 1: we're having fun in Miami. I don't really want to care.
Speaker 1: I don't really care. We're already in the playoffs. We're
Speaker 1: twelve and oh, we're already got a home field. The
Speaker 1: band is sewn up. So my job that night was
Speaker 1: to make sure Walter got his hundred yards. I was
Speaker 1: keeping track kind of in my head how many yards
Speaker 1: he had, and about six minutes to go in the game,
Speaker 1: Mike decides to put me in. We're down fourteen points,
Speaker 1: and I get in the huddle and I said, look, boys,
Speaker 1: we're already in the playoffs. I said, this game doesn't
Speaker 1: mean a damn thing. I said, let's get this man
Speaker 1: the record that he deserves. And to a man, they said, yeah,
Speaker 1: let's do it. So Dick Kay had given me a
Speaker 1: running play, so when I got up to the line
Speaker 1: of scrimmage, he knew I didn't call the running play.
Speaker 1: He's already mad, and I give it to Walter. You
Speaker 1: get He bust in there for like fifteen yards because
Speaker 1: they're they're dropping, They're rushing three dropping eight. So I forgot.
Speaker 1: We had one time out left, though, so he burns
Speaker 1: the time out. I have to go talk to him now,
Speaker 1: and he's all in my face and I said, look,
Speaker 1: we have nothing in our pass game that gets us
Speaker 1: that many yards for number one, and I said number two.
Speaker 1: I said, Walter only needs about ten yards for his
Speaker 1: record right now, And he had no clue what I
Speaker 1: was talking about. He was so mad at me, and
Speaker 1: it finally kicked in. He goes, oh, yeah, yeah, okay,
Speaker 1: we're gonna we're gonna get him his record, but first
Speaker 1: we're gonna do this. So he gives me another pass play.
Speaker 1: I go in the huddle. I said, boys, and really
Speaker 1: gonna hit the fan now. But I said, we're running
Speaker 1: this thing again, and they said, let's do it. So
Speaker 1: I come up to the line. I look over now,
Speaker 1: and now he knows I didn't call that play. So
Speaker 1: he threw his clipboard and he went to throw his headset,
Speaker 1: but his headset stuck to his waist, so it kind
Speaker 1: of bounced off and hit him back and the chest.
Speaker 1: I mean, while I'm running the play, watching Walter run right,
Speaker 1: he got another ten or fifteen yards, I said, all right, now,
Speaker 1: let's try to win the game. But he did end
Speaker 1: up getting his record. I was happy to see him
Speaker 1: do that because he deserved that at the time, and
Speaker 1: we didn't need to win anyway. It would have been
Speaker 1: great to go undefeated, have an undefeated season, and you know,
Speaker 1: do all that, but I think that was more important
Speaker 1: than that we did. We did what we set out
Speaker 1: to do, that was winning championship, and so I was
Speaker 1: I was glad that we got both those accomplice. With
Speaker 1: Jimmy start today year eleven. And oh and the Pro Bowl.
Speaker 1: You can't get better than that, plus the championship, So
Speaker 1: take us to Super Bowl Sunday. Well, I was having
Speaker 1: a great week up until I think it was Thursday morning.
Speaker 1: We'd been there Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday. We had no curfew,
Speaker 1: so it was it was a good week in New Orleans.
Speaker 1: Thursday morning, I got woken up by some of my
Speaker 1: rate fans screaming and yelling at me, saying they're gonna
Speaker 1: kill me and all this and that, and I had
Speaker 1: no idea what they were talking about. I go down
Speaker 1: to the team breakfast that morning. Jerry Venisi r Olgm
Speaker 1: come up to me and said, oh, you really did
Speaker 1: it this time. Still had no clue what was going on.
Speaker 1: Then Dicka came up to me in the breakfast line.
Speaker 1: He says, did you really say that? And I said,
Speaker 1: say what? Mike? I said, Jerry's mad at me. Some
Speaker 1: fans woke me up this morning. What did I do now?
Speaker 1: And then he told me what had happened? I said,
Speaker 1: and you believe that? I said, you actually believe I
Speaker 1: got up at six am to do a damn radio
Speaker 1: interview or somebody, I said, I didn't get home till
Speaker 1: five o'clock. I'm not getting up there. So I was
Speaker 1: getting death threats from Thursday on. So Sunday was almost
Speaker 1: a blur to me. I was I'd seen Black Sunday
Speaker 1: and all those crazy movies where fan wants to shoot you,
Speaker 1: he'll shoot you. So I was more worried about getting
Speaker 1: out of New Orleans alive than the game. You are
Speaker 1: honest to God, look me in the eye. Worried about that?
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, I was dead. It scared the hell out
Speaker 1: of me because and we practiced at the Old Saints Facility,
Speaker 1: which there was an apartment complex right behind that facility
Speaker 1: overlooked the whole field, and nobody would stand by me
Speaker 1: a practice. I had to wear a different uniform. I
Speaker 1: think Jim watched too much move, too many movies, and
Speaker 1: too much television. Holy smoke, Now you don't. I don't
Speaker 1: put it past these crazy fans. Many'll they'll do anything
Speaker 1: they can. But they also had a helicopter flying over practice,
Speaker 1: and you moon the helicopter. Oh. I kept getting questions
Speaker 1: about my ask because I got in the NFC Championship game.
Speaker 1: The one time I did slide that year, I got
Speaker 1: drilled in my hip, and this side of my hip
Speaker 1: is about this big and I I really if it
Speaker 1: wasn't for that acupuncturist, I would have never played that
Speaker 1: game because my hip, I couldn't move, I couldn't walk,
Speaker 1: And so that was where was I going with that?
Speaker 1: But we were talking about we are talking about you
Speaker 1: and the radio interview and then yeah, so they kept
Speaker 1: asking me all week about my ass or my butt,
Speaker 1: you know, so I said I got tired of it.
Speaker 1: So the helicopter was buzzing us while we were doing calisthenic,
Speaker 1: so I just I kind of dropped troal and showed
Speaker 1: him what hurt. Hey, Mitch, you know last year, October
Speaker 1: thirty first is a Halloween game and they you come
Speaker 1: in in a kind of a dipka costume. You know
Speaker 1: that a man likes to have fun, right, I know
Speaker 1: you it's kind of gutsy though, because you know there's
Speaker 1: not you know, nowadays they got a camera on your
Speaker 1: entrance everybody sees in the stadium. They play it on
Speaker 1: all the sports shows they talk about on the radio.
Speaker 1: Do you enjoy kind of putting that type of magnifying
Speaker 1: glass or that fun pressure on yourself? Yeah? You know, um,
Speaker 1: it's a little different walking in the stadiums now. You
Speaker 1: get out of your car, there's immediately a camera right
Speaker 1: in your face. You gotta wake up, brush your teeth
Speaker 1: through your hair in the morning, make sure you don't
Speaker 1: just come in at five am from the night before.
Speaker 1: But this was just one of those things that it
Speaker 1: was Halloween. I want to do something fun. I mean
Speaker 1: the rich history of the Bears. Everyone knows the the
Speaker 1: iconic Mike Dicka sweater and the sweater vests. And I
Speaker 1: had everything but the sweater vests. So I asked our
Speaker 1: qui manager, Tony Medlin, if he had anything in the back,
Speaker 1: and he picked out this sweater for me and I
Speaker 1: just threw it all together. And those are actually my
Speaker 1: mom's sunglasses, so she was wearing those that week and
Speaker 1: I was like, Yo, those are like the same exact
Speaker 1: ones that Mike Dicka used to wear. Can I use
Speaker 1: those for this week? And she said absolutely. So I
Speaker 1: came in and it all came together, so I'll be
Speaker 1: a lot of people got a kick out of it,
Speaker 1: and I had a lot of fun doing it. But uh,
Speaker 1: you just gotta make sure you win that day or else.
Speaker 1: The costume is for nothing. Well, who I all the quarterbacks?
Speaker 1: You guys usually have pretty cool hats on when you
Speaker 1: travel on the road. Who's the instigator of the hat wearing?
Speaker 1: It's my idea, Yeah, I'm the hats And then whatever
Speaker 1: one quarterback does, the rest of the quarterbacks have to do.
Speaker 1: So we do. We do everything as a group. Mitch,
Speaker 1: to this point, in your opinion, what's been the most
Speaker 1: significant moment and development in your NFL career? I would
Speaker 1: say there's really it's it's hard to pinpoint one moment.
Speaker 1: I would just say the continual, the continual grind and
Speaker 1: just keeping keeping it in perspective that I'm truly living
Speaker 1: out a childhood dream of mine, especially playing in the
Speaker 1: great city of Chicago, and just the opportunity that we
Speaker 1: had to have ahead of us to be a part
Speaker 1: of history and to make our own history history and
Speaker 1: just trying to leave a legacy behind um and carry
Speaker 1: on the great legacy which is the Chicago Bears. So
Speaker 1: I'm just very excited for what's ahead and uh and
Speaker 1: continue to get better and see what's in store for
Speaker 1: the season. Let me pull a quote from Mitch last
Speaker 1: year before the season began, he was asked by this
Speaker 1: reporter that I referred to earlier. Imagining the twenty eighteen
Speaker 1: Bears sweeping the city the way the eighty five Bears did,
Speaker 1: Tribiski rubs his chin. He says, it'd be iconic, it'd
Speaker 1: be legendary, it'd be everything you dream of. I think
Speaker 1: we all share that dream. You dreamed big ever since
Speaker 1: you were a little kid, and you're realizing these dreams
Speaker 1: like you dream you wanted this. How does that resonate
Speaker 1: with you, that your dreams are becoming reality. It's I
Speaker 1: think it's just a crazy thing that I'm able to
Speaker 1: do what I do on a daily basis, wake up,
Speaker 1: go to the city facility, play football as a as
Speaker 1: a job, and just keep in mind that it was
Speaker 1: the same game that I was playing growing up. It's
Speaker 1: it's a dream come true, and you just got to
Speaker 1: make sure every day that you're making the most opportunity,
Speaker 1: which which I think I am. Just continue to get better,
Speaker 1: have fun it is a game, and continue respecting to
Speaker 1: love the game because it's given me so much, and
Speaker 1: it's it's really a privilege um to play in Chicago,
Speaker 1: to continue this players game, It's truly a blessing and Um,
Speaker 1: you just got to keep that in mind, that we're
Speaker 1: blessed to be able to do what we do on
Speaker 1: a daily basis, go to work, play football, have fun,
Speaker 1: um and play with such amazing people and developed relationships
Speaker 1: that'll that will last a lifetime. And last night getting
Speaker 1: to see Jim with all his teammates and seeing bears
Speaker 1: from the sixties and in fifties and all the Hall
Speaker 1: of famers, it truly is relationships that last a lifetime,
Speaker 1: and last night was it was a great example of that.
Speaker 1: So it's we're just very privileged to be able to
Speaker 1: do what we do. Gm ordinamate last night mean you,
Speaker 1: I mean, I think guys, and I've out whenever I've
Speaker 1: done interviews with guys, I always tell them and Tom
Speaker 1: does two that ten, fifteen, twenty years from now. You
Speaker 1: appreciate the relationships and the moments and the locker room
Speaker 1: and the weekly dinners that you had more than anything.
Speaker 1: But you need that time away from the game to
Speaker 1: really understand what it all meant. And I I heard
Speaker 1: from guys last night. They were from every decade, just
Speaker 1: moved by last night being in that room altogether. No,
Speaker 1: it was it was great to see the old guys
Speaker 1: and the young guys altogether. This town has always been
Speaker 1: a Bear town and it's always going to be a
Speaker 1: Bear town. And these fans, I think this is a
Speaker 1: hard work in town. These fans appreciate hard working players,
Speaker 1: and they know who plays hard and who doesn't. And
Speaker 1: if you play hard for Chicago, they'll love you. And
Speaker 1: if you play hard and win, they'll love you forever.
Speaker 1: And that's the way it's been so far. So thank you,
Speaker 1: you know, on that that same question. You know, Mitch's
Speaker 1: trying to achieve everything that you were being able to achieve.
Speaker 1: You talk about this event, it's got people from all
Speaker 1: fifty states and seven different countries. Jim, every time they
Speaker 1: refer to you, they refer to you as the super
Speaker 1: Bowl winning quarterback at the eighty five Bears. Does that
Speaker 1: carry you around the country? And like, is that what
Speaker 1: people want to talk about? First? In your life? That
Speaker 1: in the Super Bowl shuffle that just won't go away?
Speaker 1: You know, that's that's a thing. I don't know what
Speaker 1: it is about that damn song, but everybody kind of
Speaker 1: you know, we did that to feed the homeless on
Speaker 1: Thanksgiving and Christmas. That was our idea when all that started,
Speaker 1: but then it just it just took it on a
Speaker 1: life of its own. But you know, this city has
Speaker 1: been great. Like I said, I lived here for twenty
Speaker 1: eight years. I love the fans here. I love coming back,
Speaker 1: especially this time of year where it's not freezing, and
Speaker 1: my oldest son still lives here in town. So it's
Speaker 1: it's always special to come back here and be a
Speaker 1: part of this team and our guys. I mean, it
Speaker 1: was just like we had just left the locker room
Speaker 1: the other day. I mean, the stories to come around
Speaker 1: and the friendships. That's that's the thing that we miss,
Speaker 1: is just hanging out with each other. All right, we
Speaker 1: only have two minutes to go, but I gotta I
Speaker 1: gotta bring this up because you have really dedicated yourself
Speaker 1: to um be in there for the military, and you
Speaker 1: were in a rock a few years back. Tell us
Speaker 1: that story, because I only recently heard about it. What
Speaker 1: an incredible experience for you to see what's going on
Speaker 1: in war over there was was amazing. All the good
Speaker 1: things that was happening over there never got reported here.
Speaker 1: All the infrastructure that we provided. Um, you know, I
Speaker 1: was there when they hung Sadam. They wouldn't let us
Speaker 1: go to the hanging, but we were pretty close. We stayed,
Speaker 1: actually stayed in one of his palaces that night. But
Speaker 1: just to see what the what our men and women
Speaker 1: go through during times of war was amazing and it
Speaker 1: was I was supposed to go back to Afghanistan the
Speaker 1: following year, but that got nicked. They said, you made
Speaker 1: it once, you're not going to go back. But it
Speaker 1: was an incredible experience. I've always got to do a
Speaker 1: lot of great stuff with the military, and it's just
Speaker 1: without the sacrifices that they made, we couldn't be sitting
Speaker 1: up here doing what we do. So I appreciate them
Speaker 1: and I'll continue to do that work. Any final thoughts
Speaker 1: time they I think everybody here is looking to the
Speaker 1: looking to the future, but learning from the past. And
Speaker 1: I think that's the great thing about this event last night.
Speaker 1: Having a chance to go in that room and you
Speaker 1: talk about the generations of players from eighty nine years
Speaker 1: old up into the guys that you know, the twenty
Speaker 1: year olds from last year's team. It's just been a
Speaker 1: great opportunity for us to learn new stuff about the Bears,
Speaker 1: and in preparation for this event, it is all the
Speaker 1: different stuff you're able to learn about the history of
Speaker 1: Chicago Bears about you know one thing that the word
Speaker 1: that always comes up about the Bears and George Hallis
Speaker 1: is toughness. And I think you go back and you
Speaker 1: look at every one of those guys that have made
Speaker 1: their name with the Bears, it's because they are tough people.
Speaker 1: Three tough guys right up here as well. Thank you
Speaker 1: so much, Jim McMahon, Thank you guys for coming out.
Speaker 1: Go Bears. Mitchell Traubisky Bears quarterbacks. Give my nice hand.
Speaker 1: Everybody