Sweetness_ The Enigmatic Life of Walter Payton - Jeff Pearlman [108]
All the news, however, paled in magnitude to the most fascinating rushing race in the fifty-six-year history of the league. With one game remaining, Payton led Simpson by a mere nine yards, 1,341 to 1,332.
Simpson-Payton carried the weight of a political election. People took sides—Payton was the upstart; the new kid. Not nearly as flashy as his rival, but gritty and determined. Simpson, on the other hand, was electric and explosive. He was the running back kids emulated in their backyards. Everyone wanted to be the Juice.
For their final game of the season, the 7-6 Bears would play host to the Denver Broncos, an 8-5 club with two things going for it: First, the Bronco players were comfortable enough in inclement weather so as not to flinch at stiff winds and twenty-three-degree temperatures. Second, Denver’s Orange Crush defense excelled against the run, allowing a paltry 3.4 yards per carry, second best in the league. Payton was hardly helped by Soldier Field’s cementlike turf, which only hardened with the winter cold. “There was actually a big hump in the middle of our field,” said Bo Rather. “And the surface burned your knees and elbows, and that shit never healed. There was no worse place for a back.”
Simpson, on the other hand, would be playing at Baltimore. The Colts had a lousy run defense, and Memorial Stadium offered a relatively cushy, well-maintained surface. Advantage: Juice.
With Soldier Field’s scoreboard, in the words of the Tribune, “not equipped with the conveniences of the twentieth century,” the Bears took the quasiembarrassing, quasi-quaint step of hiring cheerleaders from nearby Warren Township High School to carry placards around the sidelines to update fans on Simpson vs. Payton. Despite the weather, which included 13 mph winds, Soldier Field was packed. Among those in attendance were Holmes, Bob Hill, and Alyne Payton, Walter’s mother. The three flew up together from Mississippi on Holmes’ private Learjet. Planning for a celebration, Alyne brought with her one of Walter’s favorites—a raisin, pecan, and apple cake she had baked the day before.
Thanks to Baltimore’s Sunday Blue Laws (a sporting event could not start before two o’clock Eastern Standard Time), both games were scheduled to kick off at one P.M. central time, meaning neither back would know in advance what he needed to shoot for. “There’s no point in thinking about what’s happening halfway across the country,” Simpson said beforehand. “All I can do is concentrate on the Baltimore defense and hope that everything comes out well.”
“I’m just going to go out there and play up to my ability,” said Payton. “I’m not going to do anything different, I’m not going to go out there and make silly mistakes or take anything into my own hands, because I can’t do it.”
Because the Broncos had been eliminated from play-off contention, they could have understandably closed the season with limited interest. Instead, Denver’s players took the field and attacked. Blessed with Randy Gradishar and Tom Jackson, two of the sport’s best young linebackers, as well as an unblockable nose tackle named Rubin Carter, Denver’s defense overwhelmed the Bears, clogging Payton’s lanes and reducing Avellini, a subpar quarterback to begin with, to mud. He threw seventeen passes. He completed two.
The cheerleaders hired to flash placards had only bad news to report. In Baltimore, the Colts defense was playing dead, and Simpson accumulated seventy-five yards by halftime. “One of our guys was keeping up with Walter through a fan’s radio on the sideline,” Simpson said. “I had to keep telling him, ‘Hey, cool it. We gotta play this game here.’ ” Payton, on the other hand, found himself smothered by a wall of orange and blue. Two yards. Three yards.