Nearly a year after he called President Barack Obama the “worst” president ever, the outspoken ESPN analyst ripped sports journalists concerned about Tom Brady’s friendship with President Donald Trump, Obama (again) and protesting 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick.

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During a Thursday radio appearance on WABC’s (New York) “The Bernie and Sid Show,” Ditka was asked by hosts Bernard McGirk and Sid Rosenberg about the “crusade” by some sports journalists at Super Bowl 51 to make the Patriots quarterback “denounce” his longtime-friend Trump.

“These people are — can I say this — a—holes," Ditka said.

People having different opinions is what makes America great, according to Da Coach. The Super Bowl-winning leader of the 1985 Bears again professed his support for The Donald.

“I like Donald Trump. I think he’s the best man, the best qualified person. I think he’ll do a great job for Americans. There’s a lot of people out there who don’t think that. But we’ll have to wait and see. Let him do his job first," Ditka said. “If he can possibly screw it up nearly half as much as Obama, I’ll be surprised.” 

 

The hosts asked if Ditka still felt Obama was the worst president in U.S. history.

Surprise. Iron Mike hasn’t changed his views on Obama one bit : “No leadership at all. None. Zero," he said about Obama.

And God forgive a player like Kaepernick, who protested the American flag and national anthem on one of Ditka’s old NFL teams.

That player would “never” play for him again, Ditka said. He followed by saying he wished players like Kaepernick would be more humble for the game that made them rich and famous.

“Kaepernick would be an unknown. A complete unknown. He’d be a complete nobody. Nobody would know who he was without the game of football, without the sport he’s playing. Not to respect that, you have to be a pretty unintelligent person, I would think," Ditka said. “I don’t care what your preferences are. You can have anything you want to. What he had was given to him by the game of football.

“I think its important that some of these young people playing the game start giving something back to the game,” Ditka said. “And respect the game the way it should be respected – instead of acting like a  bunch of fools out there.”

 

 

During an interview with Sporting News last July, Ditka pegged himself a proud member of Team Trump. He decried a “lawless society” that treated police officers like the “bad guys.”

Iron Mike had a blunt message for protestors and critics of American democracy: “Haul your a— out of the country. Go somewhere else.”

Due to the rigors of travel, the 77-year old Ditka stepped away from his longtime chair on ESPN’s “Sunday NFL Countdown” this season. Instead, he signed a two-year contract extension to serve as a part-time “SportsCenter” analyst from his homes in Illinois and Florida. The Pro Football Hall of Famer has been with ESPN since 2004.

Ditka’s comments Thursday via Mediate underline, once again, that ESPN’s internal memo banning on-air talent from talking politics is not worth the paper it’s printed on.

We’ll see if ESPN has a comment.