The love affair between Bears fans and Doug Buffone lasted nearly 50 years.
From the time he was drafted in the fourth round out of Louisville in 1966 to when he died of natural causes at 70 on April 20, 2015, perhaps no Bear connected with Chicago fans the way Buffone did. He played 14 years at linebacker for mostly terrible teams, then spent more than 30 on the radio analyzing teams that often were just as bad.
His attitude about football and life, though, made Buffone a legend in Chicago.
“Not only a great football player, a great person on the radio, but more than anything, just a great individual,” WSCR-AM program director Mitch Rosen told the Tribune’s Fred Mitchell and Peter Nickeas on April 21, 2015. “Somebody that everybody loved. When you met Doug Buffone, you fell in love with him.”
.ai2html-blurb iframe {min-width:100%; width:280px;}
https://pym.nprapps.org/pym.v1.min.js
var pymParent = new pym.Parent(‘buffone-blurb’, ‘https://graphics.chicagotribune.com/bears-100-stats-blurbs/buffone-blurb.html’, {});
Shortly after sports radio came to Chicago full time with The Score in 1992, Buffone became the voice of Bears fans. His co-hosts included Mike North, former Bears teammate Dan Jiggetts and former Bulls star Norm Van Lier, but his best work came on Bears postgame shows with Ed O’Bradovich.
Each Bears loss from 1992 to 2014 had a silver lining: listening to Buffone find creative ways to describe his disgust with what he just watched. His partnership with O’Bradovich — another beloved former Bear who didn’t mince words — found both men finding their groove as their blood pressure increased.
Sometimes Buffone’s words were fiery: “I want somebody to get kicked in the ass!” or “These guys couldn’t play dead!” Sometimes they came out jumbled: “You better have a damn good fullblack,” or “It’s gonna be the best … whatever … since sliced breast.”
He could sum up the feelings of a fan base in one sentence: “I could have gone to Rush Street last night and found 24 players who could do better.” “I’d rather spend a weekend in jail than watch this game again.”
Bad Bears teams were “tomato cans” and “soft as a grape.” Callers he disagreed with were advised to “stop yourself!”
We never found out why hitting a bull in the ass with a banjo would be a good thing, but thanks to Buffone we learned that Caleb Hanie not being able to do so was an indictment of his quarterback skills.
Intentionally or not, Buffone was so funny he could make listeners laugh until they cried. His words always came from the heart, though.
“I don’t mind you getting beat; I got my ass whipped many times,” Buffone said in an impassioned rant after one loss. “But I tell you, I took somebody down with me. That’s what I want to see! Not today. … You are a professional team! Act like one for God’s sakes!”
The Tribune’s David Haugh wrote on April 21, 2015: “If the late Ron Santo was beloved in the city for always putting a positive spin on the Cubs, Buffone built his popularity on the basis of brutal honesty analyzing his beloved Bears. … He harshly criticized the Bears because, beneath all the bluster, he deeply loved the franchise.”
As Buffone told the Tribune’s Ed Sherman on Oct. 30, 2014, during his last season as postgame host: “I didn’t play the trombone for 14 years. I played football. Don’t give me this Kumbaya stuff and ‘We’ll try again next week.’ You’re trying to tell me I don’t know what’s going on? Even a moron would know after 14 years.”
Buffone was part of plenty of losses — 116 of them in fact, against 80 victories in his 14 seasons. He was a Bear through some of their darkest days, including the franchise-worst 1-13 record in 1969.
He set a Bears record with 186 games played, a total that now ranks fifth behind Patrick Mannelly (245), Steve McMichael and Olin Kreutz (191 apiece) and Walter Payton (190). He still owns the team record — unlikely to be broken — by playing for five coaches: George Halas, Jim Dooley, Abe Gibron, Jack Pardee and Neill Armstrong.
Buffone’s 24 interceptions are a Bears record for linebackers. His first three picks came against Bart Starr, Johnny Unitas and John Brodie; his final three came against Steve DeBerg, Dan Fouts and Steve Grogan. The Bears credit Buffone with 1,257 tackles — including more than 100 seven times — 10 fumble recoveries, nine forced fumbles and 37 sacks.
While the Bears’ middle linebacker tradition — Bill George to Dick Butkus to Mike Singletary to Brian Urlacher — is well-known, their left outside linebacker streak also was impressive. Joe Fortunato, Buffone and Otis Wilson manned the position for all but a few years from 1955 to ’87.
The 6-foot-3 Buffone was not a great athlete but kept himself in great shape; he weighed in at 222 pounds as a rookie and in his final season. In 1977 he became the first Bear to return from a torn Achilles tendon. During rehab he trained so vigorously that trainer Fred Caito and weight coach Clyde Emrich made him take 10 days off in February.
In a Dec. 9, 1977, story by the Tribune’s Don Pierson, Emrich recounted telling Buffone: “You’re driving me crazy, you’re driving Freddie crazy and you’re driving yourself crazy. Now get the hell out.”
That 1977 season saw the Bears return to the playoffs for the first time since the 1963 championship season. Buffone, a 12-year veteran, threw a wild party at his Bombay Bicycle Club on East Division Street. The celebration included dancing by the Honey Bears cheerleading squad and guard Revie Sorey controlling the tape deck. Sorey interrupted the disco hits of the day several times to play “Bear Down, Chicago Bears.”
“Hell, I don’t know what it cost,” Buffone told the Tribune’s John Husar on Dec. 20. “And I don’t care. When you average it out over 12 years, it isn’t that much.”
Buffone’s burgeoning career as a nightclub owner — he also ran Sweetwater and Hotspurs in Chicago, the Nickelbag in Schiller Park and Jubilation in Las Vegas — led many to wonder why the son of a coal miner from Yatesboro, Pa., kept coming back to the Bears as he reached his mid-30s.
In 1978 he relished the chance to set the team record by playing in his 162nd game, passing George.
“At first I took it lightly,” he told Pierson on Oct. 13. “Then I got to thinking. All those names. Bronko Nagurski. Beattie Feathers.”
Pierson pointed out that Feathers played only four seasons with the Bears.
“Yeah, but it’s a great name.”
Buffone always could find humor even in the bleakest moments. He recalled to Pierson on Dec. 15, 1979, an exhibition game 12 years earlier that the Bears lost 66-24 to the Chiefs. Buffone felt bad about the final score but worse for the white horse that ran laps around the field after each touchdown.
“I’ll never forget that poor horse’s tongue hanging out.”
Ronnie Bull was a member of the 1963 championship team who later played four years with Buffone and couldn’t help but be impressed by his attitude.
“Doug was always the kind of guy to have a big smile on his face,” Bull told chicagobears.com after Buffone’s death. “And that’s the reason everybody liked him. Nobody had a bad word to say about Doug.”
For his play and his personality, Bears fans adored Doug Buffone. He might have loved them even more.
“I always play for the fans,” Buffone told the Tribune’s Bill Jauss on Aug. 25, 1974. “I swear to God, they make me sky high. The year we were 1-13 we finished against Detroit in Wrigley Field, and they were cheering for us! I said, ‘Doug, go all out for these people!’ “
When Buffone came back for his final season in 1979, he was a battered 35-year-old with no starting position for the first time since he was a rookie. He just had to give it one more go.
“I happen to like to play this game,” he told Pierson. “What the hell’s wrong with that? The money’s there and the money’s fine, but maybe that isn’t where it’s all at. It’s my life, my job, the thing I do best.
“I love it. What can I say?”
As part of the Chicago Tribune’s coverage of the Bears’ 100th season, the Tribune’s Bears reporters and editors ranked the 100 best players in franchise history. Click here for the full list.
