Doug and OB: MORE LINE STUNTS

"I could have gone to Rush Street last night and found 24 players who could do better than the Bears did today."

Doug Buffone opening last Sunday's "Doug and OB Show."

The game is only a couple of minutes old when Doug Buffone and Ed O'Bradovich erupt for the first time.

Before kickoff of the Bears-Patriots game, Buffone went off on a two-minute rant on how he hates seeing the Bears allow the tight end come off the line untouched. Sure enough, Patriots tight end Rob Gronkowski catches the first of his three touchdown receptions without anybody laying a finger on him.

Buffone is 70 now and he is wearing relaxed-fit blue jeans. But he is so irate at what he just saw, he leaps out of his chair with the same first-step quickness he had as a young Bears linebacker chasing down Packers running backs.


"C'mon, are you kidding me?" said Buffone, waving his arms. "You have to pop that guy at the line. When we were playing, that tight end would be on his back."

The explosion hardly was their last as they watched and suffered in relative privacy. However, it played perfectly to their wheelhouse. A few hours later, the two throwback Bears from another era emerged, primed to hammer the Bears of this era.

Buffone and O'Bradovich have become must-listen radio for frazzled fans on their brutally honest Bears postgame "Doug and OB Show" on WSCR-AM 670. They did their show on location Sunday to a full house at Durbin's in Tinley Park.


It has been decades since Buffone, who played from 1966-80, and O'Bradovich, a fixture on the Bears defensive line from 1962-71, played their last games, but the passion and competitive fire hardly has faded. Exhibit A: O'Bradovich quickly corrected a caller to the show who noted that the '85 Bears had the best defense of all time.

"Second best. The '63 Bears were the best," said O'Bradovich, who was on that championship team.

Buffone and O'Bradovich rejoice when the Bears win. Yet their vintage work comes after Bears defeats. Make no mistake, the former players whose first coach was George Halas take this personally.

"You're damn right, I do," the 74-year old O'Bradovich said.

The outrage spews out in full raw, unfiltered glory. Their dismantling of the Bears after Sunday's disaster might have been an all-time best, like watching their old teammate Gale Sayers score six touchdowns against the 49ers.

"The problem is they talk too much," vented O'Bradovich on the show, his voice rising with every syllable. "Shut your mouth. Let your actions do the talking. You morons."


Buffone got so agitated at one point, he knocked over his microphone when he pounded his fist on the table.

"The Bears aren't cheap," Buffone said. "They're just stupid."

In between, Buffone and O'Bradovich litter the show with critiques calling the Bears "tomato cans," "soft as a grape," "garbage" and the ever-popular, "They couldn't play dead."

Buffone said he and O'Bradovich aren't going to apologize for their notoriously blunt attacks. It is their calling card, setting up an amusing moment in Sunday's show. Producer Rick Camp held up a sign saying there was a mystery caller on the line.

The caller began in a highly sympathetic tone: "Hey, these guys have wives and girlfriends. Go easy on them."


Buffone and O'Bradovich laughed, realizing they were being kidded by old friend Dick Butkus, who was calling in from California. They quickly pointed out that Butkus, like them, didn't suffer fools on the field back then, or today.

"I didn't play the trombone or piano for 14 years. I played football," Buffone said in an interview. "Don't give me this Kumbaya stuff and 'We'll try again next week.' You're trying to tell me I don't know what's going on? Even a moron would know after 14 years."

O'Bradovich gets offended by a perceived lack of effort and mental errors, especially from players with huge contracts. He played at a time when players had to work another job in the offseason to make ends meet. He still works; his company, Bear Oil, sells fresh oil to car dealers and construction companies.

"When you're doing wrong and you're making millions, what am I supposed to say?" O'Bradovich said. "We're not going to tip-toe through the tulips."


The biting sarcasm is like preaching to the Bears fan choir. WSCR program director Mitch Rosen says ratings for the "Doug and OB Show" routinely rank near the top in the coveted men 25-54 category. They are typically higher after a Bears defeat. The shows become almost like group therapy sessions for fans who want hear someone vent.

Indeed, as Sunday's game deteriorated, Cubs TV announcer Len Kasper sent out a tweet: "OB & Buffone might not have voices by the time they hit the air today. 4-letter word alert. Get that dump button ready."

"It's therapeutic for people to hear these former players open their souls," Rosen said. "They're saying all the things the fans want to say."

Camp, who has produced the show for three years, added, "Everyone's inner meatball comes out."


Many of the callers wish the current team had more players like Buffone and O'Bradovich, who personified the Bears tradition of tough, punishing defense. Nobody called them "soft as a grape."

Yet as good as they were, they also played on some terrible teams, including the worst of all time: the 1-13 Bears in 1969. How would they have felt back then if there was a "Doug and OB Show" ripping them on their ride home from a defeat?

"It wouldn't have bothered me a bit," O'Bradovich said. "Why would I be ticked off if what they were saying was true?"

There's no denying that the Bears' loss at New England was one of the worst in recent memory. The "Doug and OB Show" completely obliterate the Bears in their two-hour show. Nobody is spared.

In typical fashion, Buffone summed up the hopeless feeling on this terrible Sunday.

"We have a bye week coming up," he said. "I wish it was a bye year."

Special contributor Ed Sherman writes about sports media at shermanreport.com. Follow him @sherman_Report.