Tom Brady was the 199th pick in the 2000 draft, and 198 selections went by before a team decided he was worth a call. The NFL is full of stories where the people paid to judge talent got it wrong. At the Chicago Bears, Tom Waddle lived his own version under head coach Mike Ditka, who cut him four times. Now, two decades later, the former Bears WR gets real about the emotional toll he went through during that tenure.
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“It’s so funny because every time I said I can picture it my memory sucks right now, but I still remember, you know, you’d come to the building and your position coach would be, ‘Mike would like to see you.’ And you knew you had to go up the steps and sit in his office, and he was going to tell you something you don’t want to hear,” Waddle said on The Rich Eisen Show.
“He had this old leather couch. I’d sit in front of him. He’d tell me how great I was in training camp, ‘Didn’t miss practice, didn’t drop a pass, but gotta cut you, kid. You’re too small and too slow. If I put you out there, you’re gonna get killed and I’m gonna go to jail.’ He thought it was a joke, but he’s like, ‘We’re gonna bring you back.’ So like… the fourth time he cut me was after the 91 training camp, and I had such a good camp and, and I went upstairs and I was really dejected.”
Tom Waddle and Mike Ditka were together for four seasons on the Chicago Bears (from 1989 through 1992). Waddle entered the NFL in 1989 as an undrafted free agent out of Boston College.
However, physically, he didn’t fit the mold of a standard NFL wide receiver. As such, Waddle was relatively small and ran a slow 4.82-second 40-yard dash at the scouting combine. So, when the Bears had to make final cuts at the end of training camp, Ditka and Co. were forced to prioritize players with elite physical talent (like size and speed) to protect the roster from being raided by other teams.
Because of this, Ditka cut Waddle four different times. However, since other NFL teams weren’t rushing to sign a wide receiver with a 4.82 40-yard dash, Ditka knew he could safely sneak Waddle onto the Chicago Bears’ practice squad.
Although Mike Ditka feared risking Tom Waddle due to his physicality, his move also allowed the former Bears head coach to keep developing Waddle without wasting a precious active roster spot on him during the early weeks of the season.
Waddle’s persistence paid off. He played his entire six-year NFL career exclusively for the Chicago Bears from 1989 to 1994, where he racked up 2,109 receiving yards and nine touchdowns in 60 games.
However, Waddle’s NFL career was cut short at just 28 years old due to the compounding toll of the injuries he suffered, as he opted for retirement following the 1994 season.