Outwardly, Jim McMahon looks real good to Mike Ditka. ”I saw him a week ago, and there`s no question he`s in better shape,” the Bears` coach said of the quarterback`s latest attempt to come back from injury and pursue his life as an artful dodger.
But questions remain about how he is healing under the surface. Dr. Frank Jobe will chart that progress Tuesday in Los Angeles when he re-examines McMahon`s throwing shoulder to give him the go-ahead to start training camp Aug. 1 in Platteville, Wis.
”We`ll know more when Jim comes back from California and he can throw the football a little bit,” Ditka said. ”I haven`t seen him throw since he was doing it indoors at the mini-camp in May.
”But my gut feeling is he`ll play, and he will be healthy. He`s stronger to a degree from all the exercises he`s done. I feel that the biggest thing that hurt him last year–and he doesn`t agree, of course, with this–was being overweight. He didn`t move as well, and that`s where a muscle pull came from, I believe, early in training camp last year.
”The last letter I got from his physical therapist explains it all. In progressive range of motion and football throwing range, he is up to 50 yards- plus and 200 repetitions three times a week. And he`s doing 150 repetitions at 12 yards three times a week with the progressive velocity and throwing technique.
”He`s done isolated shoulder exercises and a lot of tumbling exercises to learn how to fall. He has done a lot of things to get other parts of his body in shape. I don`t think the physical thing will be nearly as great as the psychological, though.
”We won`t really know if he`s all right until game pressure and someone misses a block and the linebacker catches him flush with a tackle and you say `uh, oh` and see how fast he gets up. Any of us could pretty much go out there and throw it good in practice.”
Ditka said he will be looking in preseason games for McMahon to be steady at 55 or 60 yards. ”That`s his distance pretty much, and you won`t see 70, 75 yards from him,” he said.
He also has an eye on the Bears who let down after McMahon was sidelined by injury. ”We had a couple of guys who sat back and felt sorry for themselves because Jim wasn`t out there. You`ll find that people who sit and cry and mope about not having as good a chance to win the game without certain people on the field don`t fit in our organization.”
Ditka suspects that some of his players, as well as many fans, are guilty of presuming that quarterbacks Mike Tomczak and Steve Fuller are guaranteed to be odd-men-out of a five-man quarterback competition that includes McMahon, No. 1 draftee Jim Harbaugh and Doug Flutie.
”It`s foolish to assume Tomczak and Fuller will be gone,” he said.
”There`s a lot of scenarios. If Jim can`t play and we`re down to four quarterbacks, who do you keep? I`m keeping the three best. I won`t play favorites.
”Tomczak has improved in the offseason. He`s worked his tail off at shifting his weight when he throws the ball. Sometimes he stayed back on the back foot instead of coming to the front, and the balls he threw that way flew up on him.
”With Steve, it wasn`t so much his technique last year. He had a poor choice of decisions in a couple instances. But in 1985 in tight game conditions, Steve was outstanding. So you weigh that, too.
”Flutie has to work on not overthrowing the ball. And we have to be sure and not put him on the field in compromising positions.
”The biggest change our fans will see in our offense is that we don`t fumble as much or throw the ball away or trip over ourselves or not score from inside the 40-yard line. That will be the biggest change.”
Or else.
