Ah, the ’85 Bears just won’t go away and won’t play nice. Dan Hampton and Jim McMahon took some bad blood public and expanded their feud through the pages of the Sun Times. It all started when Hall of Famer Dan Hampton sat down with Artie Lang to give an interview and shockingly heaped faint praise on Jay Cuter while tossing his former quarterback under the bus:
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"“I would have gave anything to have him on our team,” Hampton said of Cutler in the Jan. 29 interview. “You give us Jay Cutler back in our day, not only do we win five Super Bowls in a row, but we don’t lose a game. Mark that down. If we had Jay Cutler – forget the Super Bowl: We don’t lose a game.”"
Has Hampton been drugged the last few seasons, especially the ones under Lovie Smith when the Bears had a halfway decent defense? Hasn’t he witnessed Cutler’s handywork? Cutler could undo the work of any defense.
Hampton went on to point the blame for the Bears lack of Super Bowls on McMahon:
"“Unfortunately, McMahon was only healthy a handful of games throughout his career after ’86 and ’87,” Hampton said. “It was intolerable. … When he left I was glad.“It’s a team. And everybody has to pull on the rope. Nobody can ride in the wagon. … Mike Ditka, as open minded as he is — and he was kind of a party guy when he played — but you cannot run an NFL franchise with a quarterback that you cannot depend on. It’s just impossible.”"
Sun Times editor Chris De Luca tagged McMahon in a tweet about the Hampton article and the punky QB had a response:
@ChrisDeLuca ha I think he shld go bck & play he's got a lot to say get mayb he shld coach cutler lmai
— Jim McMahon (@JimMcMahon) February 24, 2015
I’ve always contended that the Bears would have won more Super Bowls in the 80’s if they’d had a healthy McMahon. Would the ’85 Bears been invincible with Cutler at the helm? Jimmy Mac got a good chuckle at the notion.
The full interview between Lange and Hampton can be found here, with the Cutler comments coming at about the 20 minute mark: