Sport: After the Game, the News

(2 of 2)

A more traditional kind of secret was kept by the Bears, whose celebrated defensive coordinator, Buddy Ryan, 51, received pregame permission to begin negotiating a head coaching job with the Philadelphia Eagles. "We'll be back here next year as long as we have Buddy," young Safety Dave Duerson exulted after the Super Bowl, but the more grizzled defensive players at the last chalk talk interpreted the tears in Ryan's eyes and understood. "I told them," the old coach said, "no matter what happens now, next year and forever, they'll always be my heroes." When Ryan signed with the Eagles last week, Mike Ditka observed coolly, "The Bears played challenging, aggressive defense in the '60s. It didn't start when Buddy came here, and it won't end because Buddy left here." Clearly, in the view of the head coach, two men being carried off one field is excessive.

Dent provided a shoulder for Ryan. "I had a dream I'd be the MVP," said the 6-ft. 5-in., 263-lb. pass rusher, just three years removed from Tennessee State. "If you're not a dreamer, you'll never be a believer. You'll never be a winner." Before the play-offs began, his agent had suggested they might skip the Super Bowl, but Dent said he never considered it for a second. "I'm like a little kid who just got a toy at Christmas, who's just smiling and enjoying it, who can't wait to get outside and play with it." McMahon, the | swashbuckling quarterback who scored two touchdowns personally, was slower to rejoice. "I'm supposed to be on top of the world," he said softly, "but it feels like just another ball game. It's just too bad we couldn't get 34 into the end zone." Payton seemed a little let down too, sighing, "Que sera, sera." On the goal line, Ditka evidently has a keener sense of burlesque than theater. "Like ants on sugar," Perry described the Patriots who rode him down on a pass attempt, not exactly the brand advertised, but a kind of sweetness too.