The Bears activated linebacker Troy Johnson on Friday and waived linebacker LaSalle Harper, who may join the developmental squad. Johnson, a second-year player from Oklahoma, had been on injured reserve with a shoulder injury.
– Veteran offensive tackle Keith Van Horne said he is not surprised by coach Mike Ditka`s plan to have him share playing time with rookie Chris Dyko in Sunday`s game against the Pittsburgh Steelers.
”Not after nine years. This has happened before,” said Van Horne.
”Mike just tries to motivate you, and he just wants to see if those guys can play. It`s my job to go out and do my job and not worry about anything else.
”The offense clicks when we click, so that is where our leadership role comes in. Believe me, when we don`t do the best we can, we`re our harshest critics.”
– Steelers coach Chuck Noll, who guided teams to four Super Bowls in the 1970s, partially blames outside commercial influences for the difficulty in motivating today`s players.
”It was a factor in the `50s when I played,” said Noll. ”It still is. It comes down to what`s important to you. The thing that made our (Super Bowl) guys special was that what was important was football.”
Asked if he had any endorsements as a player, Noll paused and said:
”Maybe I did have a $100 endorsement with Kahn`s Weiners. I think it was the whole team that got the endorsement. Now it gets more attention because the prices are higher.”
– Ditka talking about the difficulty of maintaining a championship-caliber team:
”You try to keep your club from not getting old in certain areas, infuse new blood into it. But unless that new blood understands what you`re doing and what tradition is all about, sometimes it takes a while to get that into them. ”If you have young people who are followers more than leaders, then it becomes more of a problem. We have good young people; I don`t think that`s the problem. Our problem is that we lost two games we should have won.”
– The offense has not been the only problem for the Bears the last few weeks.
”A part of the problem is that we haven`t had a big play on special teams,” said wide receiver and special teams standout Glen Kozlowski. ”I think this week is the time we have to step up and do something, because special teams is one-third of the game.”
