Sweetness_ The Enigmatic Life of Walter Payton - Jeff Pearlman [130]
Through the first eight games, the Bears had opened with a run 88 percent of the time, and started every possession with a run 82 percent of the time. They scored touchdowns or field goals on 40 percent of the series that began with passes, but only on 20 percent of the series that started with runs. “One statistic is indisputable,” Pierson wrote. “The Bears have lost five in a row.”
Walter Payton’s father died on December 11. Five days later, in the name of pride and professionalism and whatever else one chooses to call it, Peter Payton’s youngest son took the field, a member of a bad team playing a meaningless game to cap a nightmarish season.
The Bears beat the Washington Redskins 14–10, with Payton’s forty-four-yard touchdown run on the first series setting the tone for a victorious day. His 1,395 yards for the year would rank second in the league, behind a Houston Oiler rookie named Earl Campbell. Yet those who followed Chicago football knew numbers were meaningless. The 1978 season had been a disappointing one for Payton and a disappointing campaign for the 7-9 Bears.
Even the glow from the win extinguished quickly. With forty-eight seconds remaining in the game and the Bears’ offense on the field, Roland Harper found himself eight yards short of one thousand rushing yards for the season. One month earlier the New York Giants were leading the Philadelphia Eagles, 17–12, with thirty-one seconds left. Instead of taking a knee, Giants quarterback Joe Pisarcik turned to hand off to fullback Larry Csonka. The ball was fumbled, and Eagles safety Herm Edwards picked it up and ran twenty-six yards for the game-winning score.
With that image fresh in his mind, Armstrong had quarterback Mike Phipps fall on the ball until the clock ran out. Harper spoke indifferently. (“Neill was a Christian, and I loved that about him,” said Harper. “Did I want the thousand yards? Of course. But I was a team player first and foremost.”) Payton, however, fumed. For all his greatness as a runner, Payton took immense pride in the crushing blocks he set to spring his dear friend. “Walter was actually a better blocker than runner,” said Hank Kuhlmann, the running backs coach. “Without him, Roland isn’t close to that many yards.” In the history of the NFL, only two pairs of teammates had run for one thousand yards in a season. Now here they were, at the end of an insignificant game, and Armstrong couldn’t even reward the team’s most selfless, most beloved player with a couple of carries? Was this some sort of cruel joke?
“We were all pissed off after that,” said Avellini. “There were plenty of times that season when Roland was supposed to get the ball on a trap play, but when we’d get to the line Walter would say, ‘Do you mind if we switch—you block and I run?’ I’d turn to Roland and ask if that was OK. And he never complained—never. He would switch. He was just a wonderful teammate. The perfect teammate. You’d do anything for him.
“Against Washington, everyone on the bench knew how close to one thousand yards Roland was, and if Neill didn’t, well, shame on him.”
Harper wound up with 992 yards and with that, the Bears’ disastrous 1978 season came to an end.
Payton did his best to forget the whole year.
CHAPTER 16
THE UNBEARABLE BEARS
WAY BACK IN JANUARY 1975, A COUPLE OF WEEKS BEFORE WALTER PAYTON was drafted by the Chicago Bears, Bud Holmes received a call from Charles Burch, the father of a member of the football team at Petal High School in Petal, Mississippi.
“Bud,” Burch said, “I have a small favor to ask.”
At the time, Holmes was best known as the agent of Ray Guy, the splendid Oakland Raiders punter who had starred at Southern Miss. Petal High was planning on holding a barbecue for its graduating seniors, and Burch wanted to know if Holmes—a big Petal High supporter who was hosting the event on his spacious lawn—could have Guy stop by and say a few words.
“Ray’s busy,” Holmes replied.