The '85 Bears: We Were the Greatest (14 page)

So far this season his stats weren’t great—even though he caught a 33-yard touchdown pass from
McMahon later in the Redskins game—but we were winning. And his potential was always there. He could be the greatest decoy ever made. Think how much that helps a team. So far he had only 50 carries for 227 yards, which computed to about a 900-yard season. And he’d already had eight 1,000-yard seasons. He only missed going over 1,000 in his rookie year and in 1982, when there was a strike. But he had that pride that you couldn’t kill. Nobody worked harder than he did getting in shape. He was the best conditioned athlete on our team. He was like a rock. If he had any fat on him, you couldn’t have grabbed it with pliers. He’d run that hill of his down in Mississippi, and I think he had a hill here in the Chicago suburbs, and he’d leave guys who were trying to stay with him half-dead, puking their guts out at the bottom.

“When he was breaking away from tacklers, he’d lift his legs up like a drum major.”

—Ditka on Payton

In games after every run, he’d push the ball forward a few inches. The ref would move it back, but maybe over the course of his career Walter gained 50 yards that way. He had that high step, too. When he was breaking away from tacklers, he’d lift his legs up like a drum major. He did that in college, too. It was like his trademark. Some people may have thought he was hotdogging, but he never was a showboat, a hot dog, nothing. Never. You gotta have a little dislike for the other team, but you have to have respect, too, and I think Walter had the perfect mix. He respected all those guys trying to crush him, but he wanted them to know that the forearm to their chest or stiff arm right in their mouth was to prove they weren’t bringing him down.

I mean, how big a heart did this guy have? The year before in the Washington game I said, “It’s gonna be rough, Walter. We’re not blocking them very well.”

He said, “Coach, just keep giving it to me. We’ll pound ’em.”

“I don’t want you hurt,” I said.

“They can’t hurt me,” he said. “I’m watching them. They can’t hurt me.”

He ran like a madman in that game. When we lost the next week to the 49ers in the NFC game, Walter was devastated. He was limping pretty bad afterward. A reporter asked him if he was hurt. “Not on the outside,” he said.

Walter and I talked at times. But we didn’t talk a lot. I’ll tell you the truth—there wasn’t a whole lot to coach there. He was a complete football player. He knew everything, and if he didn’t know, he’d just ask Suhey. Matt lined up in front of him a lot, to block—that’s how Walter grabbed his shorts and his jockstrap that one time—and anything Walter didn’t understand about a play, Matt would tell him. They had a great relationship. It was one of those really important relationships built on trust and having proved yourself to the other guy. Football teams, good ones, are full of small trusts like that. When they all come together, that’s when you have a great team.

Take that Washington game. Yeah, they had guys injured and they lost their punter. But we had three starters out, too. Including Covert at left tackle. That’s a pretty important position. But Andy Frederick came in and did a great job.

Now don’t get me wrong about Payton. He sure as hell wasn’t all serious and quiet. Everybody
knows that. I didn’t mind guys having their own personalities. God knows I was no altar boy when I was a player, and I didn’t want a bunch of clones. But there was only one Walter, no matter what. Off the field he was beloved by the fans. I never once saw him say no to somebody looking for an autograph, to kids, to old folks, to the real people, anyway, not those frauds looking to get autographs and sell them. And he was a practical joker. If there was an explosion, you knew it was Walter. If a firework went off anywhere, anytime, you knew it was him. All kinds of stuff. He busted my balls all the time, and sometimes it was really good.

I remember I’d be in my office late at night and I’d get these phone calls. There’d be this Latino woman on the other end, and she had a thick Mexican accent and a real high voice and she’d say, “Meester Deetka, I am Yolanda. I am mucho caliente and I want to meet you at the motel down the street. I’m waiting for you! Pleez come, señor!”

I got these calls all the time, and then about a month later I found out it was Walter. I saw him at practice and I said, “You little prick!” God, he thought it was funny.

Now so many years later, I still think about him and what a tragedy it was when he died. It was only 1999, and he was still young. He was always so strong and healthy; it was just mind-blowing to see him wasted away. He used to have a grip that was unreal, bring you to your knees. But what that liver cancer did to him was terrible. I never dreamed he’d be the first one to go from that team—before even any coaches. My offensive coordinator Ed Hughes died in 2000, and that was sad. But Walter? Going first? I remember a team doctor once told me early on that Payton’s blood enzymes were a little screwed up, but what did that mean? It was no big deal. How could it be?

It just hurts for me to remember him being ill, losing his body that way. I spoke at his funeral, but I hate funerals. I want to celebrate life. I want to celebrate Walter Payton’s life. He left a great wife, Connie, and their two wonderful kids. Man, he was a fun guy, I’m telling you.

And in 1985, he was obviously the guy who made our offense work. When I first took over in 1982, Buddy’s defense seemed to just want to beat up our offense all the time. I’ll say that again and again, because it’s true. There were defensive players who didn’t even know the names of the guys on offense. Didn’t want to know. What good was that going to do for Walter? For all of us? Finally, I told Buddy that the Bears were not on our schedule. I guess I said that a few times through the early years. And now we had become a single unit—or at least the defense respected us. And knew our fricking names. Especially Payton’s.

And why not? We already had scored 136 points, more than anybody in the league. We needed to keep our consistency and togetherness. It bothered the defense a lot that Bell and Harris were apparently not coming back. And now Richard Dent was making noise about being underpaid. He’d made the Pro Bowl in 1984, just his second season, and he was underpaid at $90,000 a year. But we didn’t need him asking to get traded, saying stuff like, “Maybe I can play somewhere else,” right during the thick of things. Next year, maybe. Nah, not even then—just get it done in the off-season. Later on I called him Robert Dent, kind of as a joke. I probably shouldn’t have done it—but it was a joke, people! Anyway, it was just my way of saying let’s all keep pulling together, and nobody’s name is that important. He wanted more publicity, so I gave it to him. But a Super Bowl ring is what it’s all about, isn’t it? Hell yes, it is. Already people were saying our offensive success was because of Jim McMahon and had nothing to do with me. Fine, I’ll put that aside. Let’s just keep rolling.

Things were going on around us, but I was oblivious. I think people don’t realize how coaches are, how narrow they make their world. Look, I knew that John McEnroe was playing good tennis. And I knew Michael Jordan was this young kid for the Bulls, and he was starting his second season and he was amazing, but that was it. I look back and see that the Cubs couldn’t get lights for night games at Wrigley Field. The Illinois Supreme Court said forget it. Of course, this was 20 years before Bob Thomas would run the court. Who knows what he would have ruled?

But I knew nothing about any of it, and I didn’t care. It’s pretty funny to see what Cubs president Dallas Green said. He was mad and said nobody would help the Cubs until it was crisis time, “And it will be crisis time next year when we have to play the playoffs and World Series in St.
Louis.” Well, they didn’t have to worry about that, did they? No, the Cubs are pretty consistent about not going all the way.

We had Tampa Bay to get ready for again. There wasn’t a whole lot of news, except that everything we did seemed to get magnified in Chicago. William Perry weighed in at his semi-weekly weigh-in, and he was a sleek 314 pounds. That was down from 330 in training camp, and hip-hip-hooray! He made 1,000 bucks, or something like that, every time he was under 315. The Fridge was unloaded! I remember later when he was getting really heavy, and he would tell me how he wasn’t eating anything at all during the day. And he wasn’t. But at night he might eat enough for five people. But he was a slender fellow in 1985, folks. He was a swizzle stick.

“Things were going on around us, but I was oblivious. I think people don’t realize how coaches are, how narrow they make their world.”

—Ditka

The Bucs game was a lousy one. We went down there and fell behind by 12 points and looked like crap. But Payton ran for two touchdowns, and we pulled it out 27–19. A win is a lot better than a loss, but Tampa Bay was 0–5, so how good could we feel? Buddy wasn’t using Perry all that much on defense, and some media people—following Buddy’s lead—were saying Fridge was a wasted draft pick. I sure didn’t think so. He was fat. But underneath all that stuff was a hell of an athlete. I had seen how fast he was off the ball for a few yards, and I knew he could dunk a basketball. So we put ol’ Fridge on the kickoff coverage team, and darned if he didn’t make two tackles. Tampa Bay blockers weren’t exactly thrilled to see this giant appliance rumbling their way.

The bigger issue was that we’d been forced to come from behind in several of our games, and maybe that wasn’t a good sign. But maybe, too, it meant we could beat people even when we weren’t playing our best.

We’d find out soon. We were undefeated. But we traveled to San Francisco in six days, to play the world-champion San Francisco 49ers. We remembered them quite well.