The thing that will haunt Mike Ditka for the rest of his days is not the people who tell him that he was nothing as a head coach without Buddy Ryan. And it’s not the fact that he traded away the New Orleans Saints’ future for one player (RB Ricky Williams) in the 1999 Draft. And it’s not even that he’s a sellout — wearing a Green Bay Packers sweater for a McDonald’s commercial last year.
Ditka’s biggest regret, he says, is deciding not to run for the U.S. Senate in 2004 — a seat that was eventually won by Barack Obama.