Sweetness_ The Enigmatic Life of Walter Payton - Jeff Pearlman [155]
Although Payton’s off-the-field behavior sometimes failed to match his gilded image, his football performance was as breathtaking as ever. Ditka followed up his disappointing rookie campaign with a marginally less dispiriting 8-8 record in 1983, but any scorn for the underwhelming coach was obscured by a developing news story that took hold of Chicago: the Chase.
As early as 1981, Walter Payton had been asked about the possibility of breaking Jim Brown’s all-time NFL rushing mark. His 12,312 yards was, without question, the most revered number in the sport. In his nine-year career with the Cleveland Browns, Brown ran with a rage that left opponents awed. He is regarded by many to be the finest athletic specimen to ever wear an NFL uniform, and for years the idea of anyone touching his record seemed ludicrous. Payton agreed. “It’s so far away, I can’t even ponder it,” he once said. “Jim Brown is in another league, as far as I’m concerned.”
That was that, until Payton’s ’83 revival. Behind Johnny Roland, the trusted new running backs coach, and a revamped offensive line that included a pair of massive first-round picks at tackle (Keith Van Horne and Jimbo Covert), a dirt-eating right guard named Kurt Becker, and Jay Hilgenberg, a future great at center, Payton ran for 1,421 yards and six touchdowns. He also caught a career-high fifty-three passes for 607 yards and two touchdowns, and even threw for three touchdowns on six pass attempts. “At the beginning of the season I was very blunt with Walter,” said Roland. “I told him that, despite all his God-given talents, people considered him to be a loser. ‘You’ve never won a thing here,’ I said. ‘If you trust me and trust your line, you might be able to snap that streak.’ It made sense to him and he had an incredible year.”
Yet in a season that featured some noteworthy highs13 and devastating lows,14 many were secretly—and not so secretly—taken aback by Payton’s newfound obsession with surpassing Brown.
When the television camera lights were on and the reporter notepads were out, Payton did his best to only talk team-team-team. All he wanted was for the Bears to win. If he ran for zero yards but the other fellas did well, he was happy. Whether he surpassed Brown or not was insignificant. Blah, blah, blah. It was utter nonsense. Having struggled to relate to his star throughout the miserable ’82 season, Ditka committed himself to learning to read Payton. He studied the running back. Watched how he interacted with teammates and coaches. Gauged his wide-ranging moods. His conclusion: “If Walter got the ball, he was happy,” said Ditka. “If he didn’t get the ball, he wasn’t so satisfied.”
Ditka never questioned Payton’s earnestness, but the coach—for his many strengths—wasn’t one to deeply psychoanalyze. Had he asked the right people, he would have been told Payton’s commitment to the record superseded his commitment to winning. Which wasn’t the worst thing, considering Payton’s rushing success and the team’s success usually went hand in hand.
But it could get awkward.
In the fifth game of the ’83 season, the Bears were leading Denver by seventeen points with less than two minutes remaining—yet there was Payton, struggling with a nagging knee injury (he would have arthroscopic surgery on both knees after the season), still slamming into the line. When a reader wrote the Tribune a letter that called