The '85 Bears: We Were the Greatest (28 page)

As the New York Giants wild-card game against the defending Super Bowl champion San Francisco 49ers was ending, fans at the Meadowlands in East Rutherford, New Jersey, began chanting, “We want the Bears! We want the Bears!” The Giants had been impressive in smacking the 49ers 17–3. But the fact that so many of the 76,000 howling fans actually wanted a piece of the 15–1 Bears showed a certain audacity that could only come from the safety of a bleacher seat and a throat warmed by a flask of booze.

The Bears had gone to the Atlanta Falcons training camp in Suwanee, Georgia, to practice for the first round.

Ditka had wanted to set up camp at the University of Illinois in Champaign, but the plastic bubble that was needed to cover the field couldn’t be erected in time. No matter. It was just geography. The Bears hadn’t changed from what they were. They may have lost to the Dolphins and had internal squabbling that was embarrassing and unprofessional, but they hadn’t died. They had been nicked, frustrated, lowered half a notch, and they were angry.

Mike Singletary had been chosen NFL Defensive Player of the Year. Ditka was soon to be named NFL Coach of the Year. The Bears were being given early credit for the machine they had become, yet they had an edge that was sharp and unyielding. And Jim McMahon—of course—was as surly as ever. He greeted the press at the Bears’ new site by telling assembled members they basically disgusted him and asking where they were spending New Year’s Eve, so he could avoid that spot. He then added that all of them were “worried about what everybody thinks. I can give a shit about what everybody thinks.”

On a cheerier note, Richard Meyer, president of Red Label Records, which had produced the 23-minute “Super Bowl Shuffle” video shot at the Park West Theater in Chicago, announced that the tape had already shipped “triple platinum,” and that 550,000 separate audio cassettes had been distributed. Another million of the things—videos and tapes—were soon to come. The rap, with the Bears performers in full uniforms, but without helmets and shoulder pads, had shocked everyone by becoming a national hit. Apparently lyrics such as Otis Wilson’s “The girls all love me,
for my body and my mind,” had captivated sports fans throughout the land. Or perhaps it was the refrain—“We’re not here to cause no trouble, we’re just doin’ the Super Bowl Shuffle!”—replete with Fridge’s gap-toothed smile and Steve Fuller’s pitiful boogeying—that got people excited.

In truth, Fuller had a reason for his ineptitude. The players had filmed the dance the day after the Miami loss (talk about chutzpa), and he was still injured. Aficionados of this kind of thing can study the video closely and notice the bandage still on the hobbling Fuller’s foot and ankle. McMahon—“I’m the punky QB”—and Payton had been mixed into the group electronically, since they had done their versions later than the other players. Payton’s was done the next day at the Park West, but McMahon’s was shot using a blue screen inside a Halas Hall racquetball court. The proceeds of the venture were to be split with the players and various charities—but the accounting, the artists would find out, would be a mess for years.

Not so with game preparation. “Tempers have flared,” said Ditka with satisfaction. “Guys are on edge.” That was what he wanted, what he felt was needed to complete this journey.

We practiced anywhere during that season.
It didn’t matter. We had the one grass field behind the offices there in Lake Forest, but the college team would play its games there on Saturdays, and sometimes the field was torn to crap. When it rained or there was lightning, sometimes we’d go into the college gym and run our stuff in sneakers.

But as it got later in the season and the field got more torn up and then frozen solid and we couldn’t really accomplish much in a gym, we would go down to South Park, which was about half a mile or so from Halas Hall. It wasn’t the location for that cartoon or whatever the hell it is on TV. It was just a neighborhood park. It had tennis courts and jungle gyms and moms walking their babies and dogs sniffing around and all that stuff. But it had a lot of grass, and we could at least run our plays. To get there you had to wind around through the neighborhood and make sure you didn’t make a wrong turn and end up in Lake Michigan or Iowa. Guys would commandeer golf carts to get there, or a bunch would jump in the back of the equipment truck and ride along with their legs hanging out. Most everybody else swiped a bike from somewhere or just walked. I guess we should have used the sidewalks, but it was a sleepy suburban neighborhood, so the mighty Chicago Bears would come straggling down the middle of these neighborhood roads, carrying helmets, laughing and goofing around, headed to work.

“We’re not here to cause no trouble, we’re just doin’ the Super Bowl Shuffle!”

Kids would come around, and mailmen would honk to get through. It was a sight. Of course, if the McCaskeys had spent a little more money on a bigger place, we wouldn’t have had to make our trek. But the Halas Hall facility had been a decent improvement over other NFL sites when it was built in the 1970s, so you couldn’t really complain. We played our games at Soldier Field on artificial turf, though, and what we got eventually for practice purposes was a patch of turf about 10 feet by 10 feet on the sideline of our grass field. That really helped. Whoo boy.

But if you’re on a mission, what difference does any of it make? It’s in your hearts and your heads.

Now it was January, though, and everything in Chicago was frozen like cement. South Park might as well have been a skating rink.

So we went down to Suwanee and practiced before the Giants game, just to keep from freezing to death. That was fine. Most of the work was done, you see. A team defines itself as a season goes on. You have preseason to get in shape and find the right players, and then you get the offense and defense you want, and then you work to make it come together during the regular season. But you don’t suddenly become something you’re not. The leopard ain’t changing its spots. So you tweak and fine-tune.

Buddy and I were okay again. But the tension, I suppose, would never go away entirely. He was a very stubborn, proud man. And so am I. And he wanted to be a head coach. And why not? So be it. The ending could be what all of us wanted.

One guy who was making some noise was Dennis McKinnon. He wasn’t real happy about how little he was being used lately. I loved Dennis, and maybe it’s because he was a feisty s.o.b. He didn’t weigh much, he was like a slender point guard in basketball, but he would block your ass off downfield or anywhere. Just ask Lawrence Taylor. And he had very soft hands and a knack for getting open and making big plays.

The thing was he’d had arthroscopic knee surgery in early July, and the fact he was back and playing at all was amazing. Football’s a tough game, and feelings get hurt. Dennis had seven touchdown catches in the first seven weeks of the season, but in the last seven games he had only seven catches, period, and no TDs. Did that mean he hadn’t been a huge part of our team, or wasn’t still a huge part? No. But he had to shut up and play, like everybody else. Teamwork. Teamwork. Look, just a few days after my DUI arrest, I had my 46th birthday, and guess what somebody gave me? A “Get Out of Jail Free” card. So I laughed about it.
It was funny. Embarrassing, but funny. Come on, Dennis. Only three more weeks.

Another guy who had been a tremendous blessing to our team was tight end Tim Wright-man. Everybody always said the Bears couldn’t find a tight end ever since old No. 89 moved on, but Tim did a great job for us. He had a big touchdown catch for us in the Jets game, and he had a streak of at least one catch in eight games, the longest for any receiver on our team. He and Emery Moorehead split a lot of time at tight end, and God knows I loved Emery to death. The stuff he gave us was so much more than a coach would ever count on, and when you get it—you just smile.

Emery was the starter in 14 of our 16 games, and he had been a nobody, just a sixth-round pick by the Giants back in 1977. We got him for nothing, and all he did for us was everything we asked. See, everybody knows about the stars. They glorify the big names. That’s all the stupid media does. But players like Moorehead and Wrightman and McKinnon are the foundation of any team. What are you going to do without them? Lose.

We go back to Chicago for the game, and the city is really cranked up. The lions in front of the Art Institute have Bears helmets on, and all you hear every second of the day is that “Super Bowl Shuffle” thing going on and on. Me, I would rather hear some Sinatra or Nat King Cole, but what the hell. The Fridge rapping, “I’m no dumb cookie,” is entertaining, I suppose.

At Soldier Field it’s cold and windy, like you’d expect on a January day. People who don’t know about the Midwest and the Great Lakes may not have a clue about wind coming in off Lake Michigan or the wind swirling around in places like Cleveland or Buffalo off Lake Erie. In Chicago, Soldier Field is right next to the lake, and the cold wind will come in and do whatever it wants. Sometimes you’ll see flags blowing in all four directions. So kickers and quarterbacks better be prepared for it.

Early in the game we back the Giants up toward their own goal at the north end, and it’s fourth down. The wind is gusting, and it’s something like 14 below zero windchill, but, hell, this is Chicago in the winter, in the playoffs. Get your skirts off. Focus. Forget the damn cold. The snap comes back for Sean Landetta, their punter, and we’ve got a punt block rush on from the left side with Shaun Gayle and Dennis Gentry. They pick up the rushers, but Landetta is worried or hurried or something, and he goes to punt the ball, and he swings his leg as hard as he can and misses it. He misses the freaking ball. Maybe he gets a tiny piece of it, but the wind just moves the ball to the side, and it looked like Charlie Brown trying to kick the ball after Lucy yanks it away.

Gayle picks up the thing at the 5 and runs it in for a touchdown. We’re ahead 7–0, and on this day that’s all we’re going to need. Our defense is
back in its full attack mode. The Giants will rush for a total of 32 yards. And Richard Dent himself will have three and a half sacks for minus-38 yards. Do the math on that one. McMahon is wearing gloves, which is something I’m not sure I’ve seen a lot of quarterbacks do, but he throws two touchdown passes to McKinnon. See, I told Dennis to hang in there. The funny thing is, Mac is throwing better spirals than ever. Usually he threw a ball that wobbled around like a ruptured duck, but these were almost the way a pro quarterback was supposed to throw.

Yeah, there’s wind like in a tornado in the stadium, and Kevin Butler misses every one of his field-goal attempts. So I understand how Landetta could screw up like that. But other guys have to step up in these kind of conditions. I told Butthead after the game not to kill himself, to throw the gun away if he had one. It’s just a golf shot, I said. It’ll come back.