The phone call nobody wants to answer surprised Ed O’Bradovich so much that even now, nearly five months later, his voice catches recalling it.
“You know that unbelievable moment in your life? I was expecting a lot of things that day, but I wasn’t expecting a call about Doug going,” O’Bradovich said, clearing his throat. “I mean, I just wasn’t.”
Doug Buffone, a Bears linebacker from 1966-79 before establishing a legacy in sports-talk radio, died April 20 at 70. Listening to Buffone and former teammate O’Bradovich — “Doug and OB” as they were known best on WSCR-AM 670 — rant therapeutically about the Bears postgame became as traditional as tailgating pregame. Every Grabowski in town identified with dese guys. Football Sundays never will sound the same in Chicago.
Doug and OB began working together at The Score in 1992 and, on the most difficult days, O’Bradovich still can’t believe he won’t be yelling into the microphone alongside his buddy Sunday after the Bears open the season against the Packers at Soldier Field.
“I had a hard time with it because it was like he shouldn’t be gone,” O’Bradovich, 75, said. “And he shouldn’t be gone. He should be here.”
Something about the Bears has been missing this preseason, and it has nothing to do with the team’s supply of depth and talent. Something just seems different without the voice that cut through all the noise, the distinctive one belonging to Buffone that always bluntly assessed the state of the Bears no matter how much it hurt. O’Bradovich still remembers the tears in Buffone’s eyes after November’s 55-14 loss to the Packers when Buffone challenged players on the air to “do the job or go home and sell hamburgers at McDonald’s.”
“Last year, Doug finally made a statement, ‘It kills me to say this, but the Bears are the absolute worst and they’re not putting forth the effort,’ ” O’Bradovich said. “You want to talk about a player who had the love for the Bears and wanted them to be world champs, something he never got close to. It ate him alive.”
O’Bradovich, starting a new postgame show Sunday with Dan Hampton on WGN-AM 720, thinks Buffone would believe in coach John Fox and his veteran staff as much as he does. Ask OB what encourages him so much and he will provide positive analytical interpretations of Vic Fangio’s attacking 3-4 defense and Adam Gase’s up-tempo offense. O’Bradovich’s head makes him as keen of an analyst as his heart, which will be heavy Sunday.
The patented passion that defines O’Bradovich flashed when asked what memory best sums up the Bears-Packers rivalry to him. All of a sudden, OB’s mind raced back to Milwaukee’s County Stadium for one particular exhibition game that exhibited animosity the most.
“That was the only game I ever played in 11 years that was an all-out brawl, a fight to the end, unbelievable,” O’Bradovich said. “Probably one of the roughest games I played was that damn exhibition game against them every year.”
This year, the Packers arrive with another Super Bowl-caliber team and the rebuilding Bears look closer to the No. 1 overall pick in next year’s draft than the NFC playoffs. Asked if it is hard to expect the overmatched Bears, with 21 new players, to grasp the meaning of the NFL’s oldest rivalry enough to respond emotionally, O’Bradovich bristled.
“No, it’s not,” O’Bradovich said. “It’s not 162 games like baseball. It’s 16. It’s not, ‘Oh, we’ll work through this one and make adjustments and get to the next one.’ No, you won’t. You can’t. You have to be ready to play!”
His speech quickening, O’Bradovich paused for a breath.
“What I’m saying is these kids better have an attitude, like the game is second to none,” he said. “I don’t think — I know what the hell I’m talking about. If these kids can get that passion. … Can they give the Packers a game? Yeah.”
Even if they don’t, O’Bradovich feels better about Fox’s ability to keep the Bears on course than he ever did Marc Trestman’s. The Bears might not win more in 2015, but O’Bradovich expects to yell less.
“If they lose two, three, four games in a row, I don’t think you’ll see the coaches running for the woods,” he said. “The coaching staff is going to make these kids stand up like men and if they have to take a beating, they’ll take a beating going down. They’ll be proud to be a Chicago Bear.”
Pride will swell for O’Bradovich, and perhaps a lump will appear in his throat, when the Bears honor Buffone and the late Mike Pyle before Sunday’s game. It has been 23 years since OB has recapped a Bears game without Doug offering his unique insight and telling stories like only Uncle Fuzzy could.
“This guy knew football,” O’Bradovich said. “I’ve been a student of the game my whole life, but nobody in this city knew football like Doug Buffone. When he spoke it was from his heart, from experience, and he wouldn’t tell anything but the truth.”
Truth is, Sunday will be a tough day for OB whether the Bears win or lose.
Twitter @DavidHaugh
