After the Game, the News

By Tom Callahan

As the cataclysmic game drew near, subjects of investigation ranged from the acupuncture marks in Quarterback Jim McMahon's bare backfield to the ghostly timbre of the Bears' Baskerville bark. Regarding that old rallying call, Otis Wilson was asked soberly, "Is it more like an arf or a woof?" The Chicago linebacker deliberated and replied, "More like a woof." On the Patriots' side, Runner Tony Collins was awash in sociological queries about his 15 siblings. Under pressure, he managed to name all eight brothers and six of seven sisters. Several of the Super Bowl's 2,500 journalists strayed off to plumb local angles. Guido Dagatta of Milan's Italia Uno TV network had an interest in New England Assistant Coach Dante Scarnecchia. "Milan?" mused Scarnecchia congenially. "Is that the capital of Italy?" Smoke began to come off Dagatta. "No, the capital is Rome. Maybe you have heard of it?"

Finally the Super Bowl was played, and once again it was the worst football game of the season, won by Chicago, 46-10. Retreating practically from the opening whistle, the Patriots fled the first half with negative yardage both in the air and on the ground. Starting Quarterback Tony Eason left the fray uninjured in the second quarter following no completions. By the finish, Collins led all New England rushers with 4 yds. Craig James, who had overrun the Miami Dolphins for the conference championship, gained 3 ft. On a goalline galumph, rotund Rookie William ("Refrigerator") Perry beat the bookies' 12- to-1 odds by scoring a Bear touchdown; against all expectations, Walter ("Sweetness") Payton was shut out. For stripping two fumbles, Chicago Defensive End Richard Dent added to his ongoing salary fight the negotiable distinction of Most Valuable Player.

. Then, almost the instant the game was over, real news began to break on all sides. The Patriots went public with a drug problem that the Boston Globe had been privy to for weeks but had withheld from its readers primarily in the interest of completeness and probably also to some extent Patriotism. Confronted with rumors before the Dolphin play-off game, Coach Raymond Berry agreed to cooperate if the Globe would sit on the story until the season's end. "There are at least five players we know who have a serious problem," Berry confirmed, "and five to seven more whom we suspect very strongly." At a team meeting in New Orleans the morning after the Super Bowl, the players read resignation into Berry's threat that he would "not go through another year" of the cocaine miseries that had vexed him all season. Overwhelmingly they voted to accept testing. "The worst possible scenario would be losing Raymond," said Guard Ron Wooten, one of the Patriots' union leaders. But when names, including that of troubled Receiver Irving Fryar, started tumbling out, the compact appeared to be in doubt.

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.