THE MONSTER MACK
Fearsome pass rusher has Bears ‘D’ conjuring ’85 comparisons
T HE WINDY CITY is howling over their new Monster of the Midway and already dreaming about a modern-day version of their fearsome ’85 Bears.
“I see people say something about like the ’85 Bears, but we’re nowhere near that,” Bears cornerback, and former Giant, Prince Amukamara told Serby Says by phone. “I see, like, little stuff on the internet. If we continue to play together and keep playing hard like this, we’ll be working towards that.”
Kha l i l Mack has changed the expectations of a town and a franchise that still fondly recalls the good old days of defense-winschampionships.
“It’s weird for me because I have more comparisons to Khalil Mack and Lawrence Taylor than I really do to the linebackers from the ’85 team,” Bears radio analyst Tom Thayer, a guard on those Super Bowl Shuffle Bears, told Serby Says by phone. “They played a little bit more off the line and had different responsibilities. But if you put Khalil Mack in that 46 structure, where he’s rushing like Wilber Marshall or Otis Wilson, those guys, he’s gonna [get] 25 sacks. He’s gonna be a key piece to making a great defense with great Hall of Fame players even better.”
Mack is such a key piece now they might as well nickname the Bears defense Mack and Jeez.
“Before they ever made the Khalil Mack trade,” Thayer said, “the Bears as a team go out and they practiced against the Denver Broncos for a week, so we had firsthand experience, or at least I did, to sit there and watch Von Miller go through his practice effort, his one-on-ones, coming out of the three-point stance, rushing guys out of twopoint stance. And then you see a lot of the simi- larities that he has and how it’s transferable to the way Khalil Mack plays.”
Raiders coach Jon Gruden, who somehow signed off on trading Mack instead of paying him, should receive a standing ovation the first time he shows up at Soldier Field.
“It feels like we’ve known him forever,” Amukamara said. “He’s very well-liked in the locker room, and easygoing. You would think a guy who just came in, and just got paid the big contract [six years, $141 million], you would think it would take a while for him to fit in, but he’s fit in real fast.”
Mack — 6-foot-2, 250 pounds and long — has five sacks and a pick-six in his four games as a Bear. That gives him 45.5 sacks in 68 games. Miller has 87.5 sacks in 109 games.
“It’s no surprise he makes a lot of our jobs’ easier,” Amukamara said. “And on the back end, the quarterback doesn’t have a high two or three seconds to throw the ball, it’s a high one or a low two seconds to throw the ball, so DBs don’t have to cover as long.”
Mack transformed himself from a 215-pound redshirt freshman nobody out of Westwood High School in Fort Pierce, Fla., into a man among boys at the University of Buffalo, whose signature moment was a pick-six of Ohio State’s Braxton Miller.
“He was out on the field by himself when all the other young men that redshirted was leaving the facility, he was there for an extended period of time,” Robert Wimberly said by phone. “For most freshmen, especially in Buffalo weather, that’s dedication. He always pushed himself.”
It was Wimberly who recruited Mack to Liberty University, and when Wimberly joined coach Turner Gill in Buffalo, Mack followed.
“Very quiet, humble kid,” said Jon Fuller, assistant AD/communications at Buffalo. “Kind of shied away from the spotlight.”
Fuller chuckled at the recollection of asking Mack to head to the interview room after a loss to Bowling Green at Ralph Wilson Stadium in his last college game.
“Khalil didn’t necessarily like doing postgame interviews regardless. I remember going up to him in the locker room and kind of telling him that he had to go to this interview, and I just kind of put my hand on his shoulder and he just kind of growls at me,” Fuller said, and chuckled. “He hated to lose. It was more about the team than him.” Mack was actually spotted at the school during his holdout with the Raiders.
“He worked out a little bit at our place off and on, you wouldn’t even know that he was here,” Fuller said. “I just happened to be at the stadium one time and bumped into him.”
Quarterbacks bump into him too often for their own good. “I feel like he does a lot of film study,” Amukamara said. “He knows what to expect. In the midst of getting double- and triple-teamed, he knows what’s coming and he’s still successful.”
Mack is the last piece of a daunting puzzle. Outside linebacker Leonard Floyd will be a double-digit sacker if he can stay healthy.
“He’s been banged up a little bit the last couple of years, but I think once he starts to get it going, he’s gonna be an elite pass rusher in the game, especially with playing with the guys that we have in the interior and on the outside,” Amukamara said.
Then you have defensive end Akiem Hicks (three sacks, two forced fumbles), and inside linebackers Danny Trevathan and first-round draft pick Roquan Smith. And respected defensive coordinator Vic Fangio.
“He always puts us in the right call,” Amukamara said of Fangio. “That was one of my reasons for signing back, knowing that he was gonna be here.”
It was suggested to Thayer that Buddy Ryan would have done cartwheels if he could have added a beast like Mack to his ’85 Bears defense.
“Buddy Ryan was really hard if you were drafted by the Bears if you came here as a rookie,” Thayer said. “However, if you had a guy like Khalil dumped in his lap at 27 years old, yeah, Buddy would be doing cartwheels because he wouldn’t have to live through that rookie hope, where you really don’t know what you’re getting yet. And then when you showed signs of life, that’s when Buddy Ryan would give you respect. Khalil Mack’s already been over that hurdle.”
For Da Bears, it is Mack to the future.