Mike Ditka Remains Baffled By Saints' Losses -- Coach Insists Effort Is More Important Than Talent

NEW ORLEANS - The pregame speeches aren't getting through, Mike Ditka thinks. To a football coach with a gift for oratory, deaf ears can be more bothersome than losses.

Ditka is "surprised" his New Orleans Saints are 1-4, but he's absolutely "baffled" they aren't playing with emotion.

"I guess I failed in that area," Ditka said. "It really is frustrating. I know I'm a dumb ass if I can't impart that."

He brought in a psychologist to help deliver the message the night before their only victory two games ago against Detroit. On Tuesday, wife Diana offered extemporaneous help when she ran into some players at the Saints' offices.

"Listen, if you guys don't win this week in Chicago, don't even bother to come back," she said.

She never had seen the players before.

"How's Coach?" they asked.

"He's not happy, and I have to live with him," she said.

"We want it as bad as he does," they said.

"I don't think so," she answered. "You don't know how bad he hates to lose."

By Wednesday, Ditka had convinced himself emotion no longer would be a problem.

"We'll have emotion from here on, believe me," he said. "I talked to them about it, and I'm a good talker."

Safety Anthony Newman said he expects Ditka's emotion to be more "on the bright side, more positive." He is now imploring his players to have more fun.

Ditka believes with all his heart in all the sayings posted in his locker room, that effort always is more important than talent. When he sees 1-4, he admits his imagination was betrayed. When he doesn't see intensity, he can't believe his eyes.

Players sound like they understand, but they haven't played like they buy it.

Center Jerry Fontenot, the only player to have played for both Dave Wannstedt and Ditka, says the difference is "Mike's ability to motivate. He's a good speaker. He can really drive a point home. It's a gift. It's not like Dave's not a good speaker, but Mike has a special gift, and he's able to use it."

Yet receiver Daryl Hobbs cussed out offensive coordinator Danny Abramowicz a week ago when Abramowicz told him to pick it up in wind sprints. Then Hobbs had the audacity to complain to Ditka that not enough passes were being thrown his way. Hobbs, obtained from the Raiders in a predraft trade, is gone.

"I don't know what goes through their minds," Ditka said. "We went through a couple of situations where we gave starting jobs. When you give a guy an opportunity to be a starter in the league and he doesn't understand the magnitude of that, I don't understand it. It's the greatest game in the world. To have the opportunity to play and not to grasp everything with all your energy and every bit of your might and have fun doing it and lay it on the line every week, you have to be crazy.

"Maybe this is the new football, I don't know."

Maybe it's the old football. Ditka had housecleaning to do in Chicago in 1982, too. Among others, he got rid of an overweight guard, Noah Jackson, and a reluctant receiver, James Scott. In New Orleans, he sent fat guard Donald "Snacks" Willis packing, and now Hobbs.

Against San Francisco at halftime, Ditka went ballistic, ending up in cornerback Eric Allen's face. The two had to be separated. Ditka has mellowed, all right. Took him three games. In 1982, he went nuts after the second game, a 10-0 loss to New Orleans, accusing his team of going on strike a day too early.

Ditka was sky-high after a 35-17 thumping of the Lions on Sept. 21. Now he's so low after Sunday's 14-9 loss to the Giants reporters wonder if he'll resign before the year is out.

"If they lose in Chicago, it would be the biggest embarrassment to Mike," Diana said.

But quit?

"Mike's not a quitter," she said. "He's not discouraged. I don't see him giving up."

"I'm frustrated, but I'm not going to quit trying," Ditka said.

"He's just frustrated like we all are because we don't know which team is going to show up, the one that beat Detroit or the one that lost to New York," General Manager Bill Kuharich said.

Abramowicz said from what he has seen of the Bears' defense, the Bears "are playing with way more enthusiasm than we are."

The psychologist, stress therapist Roger Mellott, told the Saints to let go of the past. In New York, the players apparently remembered Mellott's speech too literally, forgetting how they had won the previous week.

But the ups and downs must be ironed out.

"I think we respond to Mike's passion," Fontenot said. "Coaches felt the team was flat in New York."

"When Mike got home, he looked like he had been run over by a truck," Diana said.

"I am tired," Ditka admitted. "I'm emotionally tired. You can handle physical. The emotional aspect, it makes you tired, makes you old. If you don't care, it doesn't matter. Unfortunately, I happen to care a lot."