Sweetness_ The Enigmatic Life of Walter Payton - Jeff Pearlman [124]
Added another: “I think we’ve gone about as far as this coaching staff can take us.”
In the company of teammates, Payton nodded in agreement. If a coach didn’t want to be in Chicago, the team would surely be better off without him. And yet, Payton was distraught. “I hate to see the guy leave,” he told the Tribune while practicing at the Pro Bowl in Tampa. “He brought back a winning attitude to the team.” Pardee had transformed him from a timid plebe to the recently named NFL Most Valuable Player. By benching him as a rookie, Pardee made Payton question his toughness. By running him repeatedly, Pardee taught Payton how to endure NFL punishment. By handing Payton the keys to the Bears offense, Pardee turned Payton into a star.
Pardee had been rugged and unsympathetic, but he also led an ordinary football team—one lacking a capable quarterback—to the play-offs for the first time in fourteen seasons. Maybe, just maybe, Chicago’s players failed to recognize a great thing when they had one.
Over the twenty-eight days that followed, Jim Finks and his staff conducted an uncommonly secretive coaching search. Five candidates were brought to Chicago for interviews:
• John Ralston, former Denver Broncos head coach
• Ollie Spencer, Oakland Raiders offensive line coach
• Bill Walsh, Stanford University head coach9
• Don Coryell, former St. Louis Cardinals head coach
• Neill Armstrong, Minnesota Vikings defensive coordinator
Walsh would go down as, arguably, the greatest coach in NFL history. Coryell would go down as, arguably, the most influential offensive mind in NFL history.
The Bears hired the fifty-one-year-old Armstrong.
He was a good man. A friendly man. A qualified man who starred as an all-American end at Oklahoma A&M (later known as Oklahoma State) before spending five years with the Philadelphia Eagles and another three with the Winnipeg Blue Bombers of the CFL. Upon retiring as a player, Armstrong returned to Stillwater, Oklahoma, to serve as an assistant coach at his alma mater from 1955–61, then worked for the Houston Oilers in 1962 and ’63. “I really came to love consulting with players and helping make them better,” said Armstrong. “I thought to myself, ‘Sooner or later, I’d sure like to be a head coach.’ ” In 1964 he was tabbed to guide the CFL’s Edmonton Eskimos, and over six unremarkable seasons the team went 37-56-3. When the Vikings came searching for a defensive coordinator in 1969, he jumped at the opportunity.
Around the league, news of the Bears’ hire was greeted with a pronounced yawn. Whereas Walsh was dynamic and Coryell inventive, Armstrong was a room-temperature bowl of vanilla pudding. “Neill was quiet, his gait was slow, he looked you in the eyes, and spoke with a calming voice,” said Vince Evans, a Bears quarterback from 1977 to 1983. “He was just such a nice man. Maybe too nice.”
“Neill Armstrong was anything but a hard-ass,” said Mike Raines, a free agent in camp with the Bears in 1978. “He was the anti-hard-ass.”
Like Finks, Armstrong was secretive and tight-lipped. When asked at his introductory press conference about Chicago’s unimaginative play calling, the new coach shrugged. “I don’t know what people consider dull about the Bears’ offense,” he said. “If it takes handing the ball to Payton thirty times a game to win, that’s what we’ll do.”
With those words, an audible moan overtook the Windy City. More than thirty years later, Armstrong admits he was merely trying to be nice. “We needed a quarterback in the worst way, and we didn’t have good enough wide receivers,” he said. “But”—Armstrong laughed—“we did have one big piece.”
He met Walter Payton for the first time a couple of days after the press conference,