Before the Bears of 40 years ago stormed the NFL’s mountaintop, before they audaciously ‘‘Shuffled,’’ before a ‘‘Refrigerator’’ became America’s favorite appliance — before the 1985 season altogether — they were dragged through the dirt in San Francisco, leaving the great Walter Payton with tears in his eyes.
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The end of the line met the 1984 Bears hard in the NFC Championship Game, won 23-0 by the peerless 49ers at Candlestick Park. Payton, 10 NFL seasons behind him and already the league’s career rushing leader, felt the gravity of opportunity slipping by. The Bears had won the NFC Central for the first time in 18 years of divisional play and reached double figures in victories, at 10-6, for only the second time since their 1963 NFL title. Was that as good as it would get?
Chicago had a lot going on at the time. Harold Washington had become its first Black mayor, following Jane Byrne, the first woman to hold the office. Tourism was on the rise. House music, too. Taste of Chicago, ChicagoFest, Jazz Fest and Blues Fest all were new or nearly so, pumping the lakefront full of added life. Movies and TV shows kept coming to film, among them the cop drama ‘‘Hill Street Blues,’’ an Emmy-winning machine. If nothing else, the city was as interesting as ever.
But nothing — nothing — topped the excitement of our sports scene. If you don’t know the history — and if you do, you surely miss it — just try to imagine it.
The Blackhawks, amid a 28-year playoff streak, had made it to the conference finals in 1982 and 1983 (and would again in 1985), fueled by rising stars Denis Savard and Steve Larmer and stalwarts Doug Wilson and Troy Murray. The ‘‘Winning Ugly’’ White Sox of 1983, with MVP candidate Carlton Fisk, Rookie of the Year Ron Kittle and 20-plus-game winners LaMarr Hoyt and Rich Dotson, had won 99 games and reached the postseason for the first time since the 1959 World Series. The 1984 Cubs, with MVP Ryne Sandberg, towering ace Rick Sutcliffe and wildly popular announcer Harry Caray, had won 96 and played October baseball — coming oh-so-close to epic glory — for the first time since the 1945 World Series.
The year 1984 started with Big Ten champ Illinois in the Rose Bowl. Soon after, the Illini men’s basketball team added its own Big Ten title en route to the Elite Eight of the NCAA Tournament. DePaul soared to a No. 2 national ranking during the season and — despite another early exit in March — finished 27-3.
And then there was the Bulls’ selection in June of a North Carolina guard by the name of Michael Jordan. Perhaps you’ve heard of him.
The ’84 Bears only upped the ante. They went 7-1 in the division, sweeping the Vikings, Lions and Buccaneers and splitting with the Packers. Their pass rush was insatiable — and to fans, a drug — piling up an unthinkable 72 sacks, still the NFL record. After their first of five Central titles in a row, they scored a major playoff upset at Washington without injured quarterback Jim McMahon. The arrow was pointing up — way up — no matter the sting in San Francisco.
‘‘We have touched the future,’’ linebacker Mike Singletary said.
And defensive lineman Dan Hampton: ‘‘There is no way that this team [has to] worry about not being back next year.’’
Even 49ers coach Bill Walsh, amid a good bit of gloating, predicted the Bears could be the team to beat in 1985.
ON HIS FIRST DAY OF TRAINING CAMP in 1985, Payton joined a Super Bowl-or-bust chorus of players. But coach Mike Ditka had been a Bears star in 1963, when they won the championship, and in 1964, when they checked in at a vastly disappointing 5-9. Ditka’s message to the team was that the success of the previous year meant precisely diddly-flip. The Bears were only as good as their last game, and the last one had been a disaster.
Still, the talent at Ditka’s disposal was immense and undeniable. The Bears had 11 first-round draft choices — six on offense, five on defense — among their probable starters, and Pro Bowl players such as Singletary and hellacious defensive end Richard Dent who hadn’t been first-round picks.
There were questions about the rookies, chiefly No. 22 overall selection William Perry, a too-round mound of pounds from Clemson who had led the nation in 1984 with 27 tackles for loss. Perry — part defensive tackle, part dancing bear — would end up with a rushing touchdown in the Bears’ 46-10 Super Bowl victory against the Patriots. Second-round cornerback Reggie Phillips would have a pick-six. Fourth-round kicker Kevin Butler beat out veteran Bob Thomas for the starting job, booted three field goals on Super Sunday and became a mainstay. That’s enough about the big game for now.
The Bears dropped their first three preseason games. Reporting from Green Bay that August, the Sun-Times’ Brian Hewitt wrote that the Packers had ‘‘all the ingredients of a division champion.’’ Despite any shreds of doubt about the Bears, they won their final tune-up 45-14 against the Bills.
In Week 1 at Soldier Field, the Buccaneers pounced on the Bears for 28 points in the first half, with quarterback Steve DeBerg throwing for three touchdowns. Fans in the stands were dazed and frustrated right off the bat. But the Bears’ Leslie Frazier opened the scoring in the second half with a pick-six, and it was all Monsters from there. The Bears won 38-28 and pretty much never stopped wrecking offenses after that.
For more than half of a Thursday-night game in Minneapolis in Week 3, McMahon, whose aching back and infected leg had kept him from practicing, was on the sideline, per Ditka’s orders. But the mouthy McMahon chirped at his irascible coach from the opening kickoff, throughout halftime and into the third quarter until Ditka finally relented — the Bears trailing 17-9 — and sent No. 9 into the fray. The sudden siege McMahon staged from there ranks with the most spectacular entries in Bears annals: He threw three touchdown passes — a 70-yarder to Willie Gault, a 43-yarder to Dennis McKinnon and a 25-yarder to McKinnon — in a span of seven attempts. The good guys were 3-0. Beardom was rocking.
AFTER DESTROYING WASHINGTON 45-10 in Week 4, the Bears led the league in scoring and unanimously were voted the No. 1 team in the NFL by a league-commissioned panel of writers. Still unbeaten in Week 6, they returned to Candlestick for a greatly anticipated rematch against the 49ers. Nine months earlier, Walsh had used offensive lineman Guy McIntyre as a blocking back against the Bears, an almost unheard-of tactic taken by some — especially Ditka — as a disrespectful vanity act. The backlash was ferocious as the Bears sacked Joe Montana seven times in a 26-10 victory. They were 6-0 for the first time since 1942. Most delicious in the moment, the last two plays of the game had been handoffs to Perry.
Ditka had fun with the suggestion he was reveling in payback.
‘‘You think I’d do that?’’ he said. ‘‘I’m not that kind of guy.’’
For Ditka, any sense of gratification evaporated early the next morning when, after returning to O’Hare Airport on a charter flight, he was arrested for driving under the influence of alcohol. But the next game — against the Packers in Week 7 — would get the good times rolling again, with Perry’s star rising magnificently, lighting up the night.
It was ‘‘Monday Night Football’’ at Soldier Field. The Packers were 2-0 in the division. The Bears had spent the previous week on the cover of Sports Illustrated (‘‘Bears on the Prowl’’), no minor matter back then. Early in the second quarter, Perry lined up at fullback and blocked linebacker George Cumby into oblivion on a touchdown run by Payton.
‘‘It took him right out of the stadium!’’ ABC announcer Frank Gifford said.
Two possessions later, Perry got the ball himself and plunged in from the 1, a mind-boggling sight that left analyst O.J. Simpson laughing until the extra point was on its way. The Bears picked off Lynn Dickey three times and Randy Wright once. They sacked Wright three times and Jim Zorn twice. Three QBs, zero hope. And one ‘‘Fridge,’’ via special delivery.
Two games later, at Lambeau Field, Perry caught a touchdown pass from McMahon in a 16-10 victory. That one felt extra-good after some dirty play by the home team, safety Ken Stills in particular. The Bears were 9-0.
To get to 11-0 and clinch a division title, they’d have to beat ‘‘America’s Team’’ on its home turf. The Cowboys came in 7-3 and went out essentially having ceased to matter, victims of a 44-0 annihilation that was the worst home loss in franchise history. The Bears’ defense marauded for five takeaways and intimidated by — something new — barking. It started in this game with safety Dave Duerson and linebacker Otis Wilson. Soon, Singletary, safety Gary Fencik and others were joining in. They were ruff and ready for anything.
The game against the Cowboys landed the Bears back on SI’s cover (‘‘44-0’’). Their level of play carried over in a 36-0 victory against the Falcons in Week 12. The barking stuck, too. Just how good was this team? With McMahon recovering from a shoulder injury, backup Steve Fuller had started and won three games in a row — by a combined score of 104-3.
MEN’S SPORTS’ UNDER-25 CLUB couldn’t have been cooler in 1985. Basketball had Jordan. Hockey had Wayne Gretzky. Baseball had Don Mattingly and Doc Gooden. Track and field had Carl Lewis. Even chess had 22-year-old Garry Kasparov, who that year became its youngest world champion.
Football had Dan Marino, the NFL’s reigning MVP. In 1984, the supremely talented quarterback had carried the Dolphins to the Super Bowl. A year later, most were betting on him to get there again, assuming he could survive a Bears assault in Week 13. As it turned out, it was the Bears who couldn’t handle that Monday-night assignment in Miami. The Dolphins erupted for 31 first-half points — one more, as Sun-Times scribe Kevin Lamb noted, than the defense had allowed in the previous seven games — as Marino threw for first downs on third-and-18, third-and-19 and third-and-13. Payton reached 100 yards rushing for an NFL-record eighth consecutive game, but the Bears still fell 38-24, preserving the 1972 Dolphins’ standing as the NFL’s only perfect team.
‘‘A perfect season would have been nice,’’ defensive tackle Steve McMichael said, ‘‘but maybe this will bring us back to earth a little.’’
Duerson agreed, saying, ‘‘15-1 is not bad.’’
Or, as center Jay Hilgenberg put it: ‘‘The only important game is the last game at the end of January.’’
The Bears were laser-focused on getting to that task. Or were they? Because the day after getting their rear ends handed to them on national TV, a group of Bears including many of their most revered leaders — Payton, Fencik, Singletary, Wilson and, of course, the devil-may-care McMahon — recorded ‘‘The Super Bowl Shuffle.’’ How else would we still know today that runnin’ the ball was like -makin’ romance to Payton, that Gault was as smooth as a chocolate swirl, that the ladies all loved Wilson for his body and his mind and that the Fridge, God bless him, was large but no dumb cookie? Apparently, this was -vital information to put out there even before the Bears had, you know, won a single playoff game.
‘‘I said, ‘How pompous is this?’ ’’ Hampton, who wasn’t part of the ‘‘Shufflin’ crew,’’ told the Sun-Times in 2001. ‘‘We’re talking about the Super Bowl, and we’ve never been.’’
Back at Soldier Field, fans were salty enough after the mess in Miami that they booed the Bears for a sluggish effort in the first half against the lowly Colts. The Bears averted disaster in that one, then locked back in and dominated on the road against the playoff-pound Jets, allowing a measly 159 yards and possessing the ball for two-thirds of the game. After making easy work of the Lions in the regular-season finale, they were 15-1 — no, indeed, not bad at all.
HEADING INTO THE PLAYOFFS, Ditka, a veteran of five Super Bowls as a player or coach with the Cowboys, sounded an alarm.
‘‘I think you better be scared to lose,’’ he said a day before becoming the runaway winner in NFL Coach of the Year voting. ‘‘That’s what it’s about. It’s sudden death. You better go in there mad as you can, with the biggest chip on your shoulder that’s possible.’’
Not worried at all was McMahon.
‘‘This team is not like the other teams of the Bears — or the Cubs,’’ he said, throwing the North Siders right under the bus. ‘‘We’re the Bears of ’85, and we’ve got no quitters or guys who are gonna choke.’’
Toward the end of the Giants’ 17-3 wild-card victory against the 49ers at Giants Stadium, fans chanted, ‘‘We want the Bears!’’ Wish granted. In the divisional round, the Bears sacked Phil Simms six times — 3½ courtesy of Dent — and held the Giants without a first down on nine of their first 11 possessions. This season, it was Lawrence Taylor and the Giants who had led the league in sacks, but the Bears’ offensive line pitched a shutout. A stellar Sun-Times headline the next morning read, ‘‘Bears of Second City Show No Pity.’’
Next came the Rams for the NFC Championship Game on the frigid lakefront. The cold was one major topic during the run-up, prompting guard Mark Bortz to explain that mind tricks and adrenaline worked better than sleeves every time. The question of which running back was better — Payton or Eric Dickerson — was another.
‘‘The main difference between Eric and me,’’ Payton said in a Tribune story, ‘‘is I don’t have to run against the Chicago Bears’ defense.’’
Dickerson got pounded, fumbling twice. Quarterback Dieter Brock looked scared to death. The Rams were held to 130 yards and nine first downs. They never had a chance, losing 24-0. McMahon was so unscared, he rumbled 16 yards for the first touchdown of the game, then took off his helmet and revealed a headband with ‘‘Rozelle’’ written across it — a classic dig after commissioner Pete Rozelle had threatened and fined McMahon for wearing an Adidas headband.
‘‘I think his image attracts a lot of people,’’ offensive tackle Keith Van Horne said of his QB. ‘‘It also offends a lot of people. Not that he cares.’’
Last up were the Patriots in New Orleans. The same Patriots whom the Bears had manhandled in Week 2. The same Patriots whose offense had spent a grand total of 21 seconds in Bears territory in that game. Was Super Bowl XX over before it even started? Nah. OK, yes.
The Bears were too much. Payton, Dent, McMichael, Singletary and offensive tackle Jimbo Covert made first-team All-Pro, with Singletary winning Defensive Player of the Year. Eight Bears, including Hampton, -Duerson, Wilson and Hilgenberg, made the Pro Bowl. More than just stars, it became a team of celebrities. Uncommonly at the time, Ditka, McMahon and Perry, to name three, earned considerably more money off the field than on it. But this team of all-out dogs had every bit as much bite as bark — and probably more.
‘‘They’re not America’s Team,’’ Lamb wrote as the big game neared. ‘‘They don’t even want the nickname. No, the Bears are America’s Dream.
‘‘They have touched a chord in a country that elected Ronald Reagan president because it couldn’t have John Wayne. . . . In a country where the Marines are back in style, the Bears are storming enemy backfields and planting quarterbacks like flags at Iwo Jima.’’
Super Bowl week was wild, nearly all of it involving McMahon. Suddenly, he had the world’s most famous acupuncturist, to the dismay of the front office. According to a trumped-up news report, he insulted essentially every citizen in ‘‘The Big Easy.’’ He even mooned a news helicopter. Beyond the circus, elite defensive coordinator Buddy Ryan — as important to the team as anyone — was heavily (and correctly) rumored to be headed to the Eagles as their next coach.
‘‘The Bears spent a month in New Orleans this week,’’ Hewitt put it, just perfectly.
The tally was 46-10. Perry scored. Payton didn’t, sort of a bummer. The Bears were completely, terrifyingly in charge, with nothing left from the second quarter on but to count down to a celebration. They carried Ryan off the field. They carried Ditka off. If you didn’t watch it then, you’ve seen it since. It never gets old.
SOMETIMES IT GETS OLD. It’s not just the 1985 Bears themselves who’ve ridden Chicago’s signature football accomplishment like a circus pony for 40 years. Here we are, doing the same by writing about it. Still. Yet again.
‘‘Let it go,’’ McMahon, ever against the grain, said in 1995. ‘‘That was 10 years ago.’’
In 2015, columnist Rick Morrissey astutely observed: ‘‘This is the 30-year anniversary of the 1985 Bears, which means it’s been five years since the 25-year anniversary of the 1985 Bears.’’
The thing is, the Bears haven’t won a -Super Bowl since way back then. There’s a decent chance you know that already. There’s also a decent chance you know that such a team — great, inimitable, beyond legit — should have won at least another.
‘‘Maybe we weren’t as good as we thought we were,’’ Bortz said — wrongly? — in 1995.
Someday, a Bears team will win it all again. When that happens, 1985 finally might recess into a dark corner. There was a chance of it with the 2006 Bears, but our only other -Super Bowl squad lost to the superior Colts. Here’s what columnist Rick Telander wrote after that one:
‘‘Lordy, what has oozed back into the vacuum created by the Bears’ failure in Super Bowl XLI? You know what it is — the 1985 Bears. Once more. Forever. Like roaches.’’
Harsh. Also spot-on, yet a little bit unfair at the same time. The best football team the city has seen looms deservedly large. Those Bears set one hell of a standard.
In June 1993, the Bulls were close to completing a three-peat. Even at that — even with Jordan — they hadn’t surpassed those Bears in the estimation of columnist Richard Roeper, who wrote, ‘‘The Bulls are [still] on the verge’’ of it.
Roeper again, as the 2005 White Sox were close to ending an 88-year championship drought: ‘‘Even if the Sox win the World Series in dramatic fashion, they still won’t displace the 1985 Bears or the Michael Jordan Bulls at the top of the list. That’s beyond dispute.’’
In October 2016, Ditka actually said of the Cubs, who were trying to end a 108-year drought: ‘‘There’s no question that if they did win it all that it would eclipse what we did in ’85. I really believe that, no question.’’
Well, it’s a question. And a good one. -Because as Hall of Famer Bill Parcells — the Giants’ coach in 1985 — told the Sun-Times years back in a conversation about Soldier Field, ‘‘The best team I ever coached against played there once.’’
We’d end on that, but it feels better to end with another Hall of Famer, McMichael, who died in April. Thirty years ago, he kind of said it all about a season like no other:
‘‘It’s one of the pure pleasures of my life, people remembering me for that,’’ he said. ‘‘It’s something you pray for.’’