Sweetness_ The Enigmatic Life of Walter Payton - Jeff Pearlman [142]
Though far from an A student at Jackson State, Payton was no idiot. This, he told anyone who’d listen, was not a good football team.
Chicago opened the 1981 season with a 16–9 loss to the Packers at Soldier Field (BEARS, PACKERS PLAY A YAWNER, read the Tribune headline), and followed with a 28–17 setback at San Francisco. In that game Payton—who in past seasons rarely coughed up the ball—fumbled twice, including one at the 49ers’ one-yard line. The team finally won with a 28–17 thumping of lowly Tampa Bay in Week 3, but, after gaining a mere sixty-four yards on the ground, Payton lost it. He could accept losing (as a Bear, he had little choice) and he could accept bad games, but this was too much. The offensive line was borderline dysfunctional, opening dime-sized holes and failing to stay with its blocks. “The linemen were big, slow, and fat,” said Jack Deloplaine, a former Bears fullback. “When I was with Pittsburgh, all the linemen benched well over five hundred pounds. In Chicago, they weren’t even close.” When asked about his inability to gain a hundred yards through the first three games, Payton stepped out of character and pointed a finger at his blockers. “It got to the point where there wasn’t any place to go,” he said. “I attacked the defense. As a result of that, I had guys who were trying to tackle me lying on the ground. I broke my shoulder pads. Look at my [cracked] helmet.” Teammates were shocked. If there was one guy who never blamed others, it was Payton. “Pay me eight hundred thousand dollars,” responded an irritated Noah Jackson. “I’d take some shots. And I sure wouldn’t be talking about my offensive line.”
The following week, after gaining forty-five yards in a Monday night loss to the Rams, Payton was reminded of the time he presented his offensive linemen with gold watches. “This year,” he said, “I’ll give ’em pieces of my body.”
None of Payton’s body parts were absorbing greater abuse than his knees. At the conclusion of most games, he could be found on a training table, one knee covered with three or four ice bags, the other being drained of pus and fluid. The ritual was one Payton dreaded—he was terrified of needles, even when he knew an injection would ease his pain. “No teammate could question Walter’s guts, because they saw him on that table, hurting,” said Fred Caito, the Bears trainer. “I don’t think anybody knows how he played week after week, because the abuse he absorbed would have killed bigger men.”
It wasn’t until the eighth week of the season that Payton cleared 100 yards in a game (107 in a 20–17 overtime victory against San Diego), but by then there was nothing left to salvage. At 2-6, Chicago was far out of the play-off race. With 537 yards, Payton was far out of the rushing race. The fans did not respond well. Jerry Kirshenbaum, the editor of Sports Illustrated’s Scorecard section, gave his Sign of the Year award to a Soldier Field spectator whose banner read CHICAGO HAS MORE DOG TEAMS THAN THE YUKON. After paying $58.40 for two tickets to the Bears’ 24–7 loss to Washington on October 11 (Payton ran for five yards), James Tulley, a thirty-one-year-old school-supply salesman from Rockford, Illinois, filed a small-claims complaint against the organization for “misrepresenting itself as a professional football squad.”
“We were the Bad News Bears,” said Brian Cabral, a rookie linebacker. “At Soldier Field they actually put awnings and a tent over the tunnel we came in and out of to protect us from the beer and stuff the fans would throw on us and Neill.”
Don Pierson, the spectacular Tribune beat writer, began receiving letters from readers demanding Armstrong replace Payton in the starting lineup with Willie McClendon, the third-year backup out of the University of Georgia. “I wanted to play,” said McClendon. “I mean, I really wanted to play and I was frustrated on the bench. But anyone who thought Walter should sit