Sweetness_ The Enigmatic Life of Walter Payton - Jeff Pearlman [156]
“Walter wasn’t a selfish guy,” said Roland. “He was the consummate team player. But records meant something to him, and he went after them hard.”
When the Bears were laughingstocks, Payton’s stubborn refusal to run out of bounds earned him rave reviews. He was tough. He was rugged. He delivered hits before the hits were delivered to him. But while fans and journalists praised the approach, some teammates questioned the logic. Payton didn’t merely refuse to run out of bounds at certain moments—he refused to run out of bounds, period. If Chicago needed to stop the clock, a handoff to Payton was an iffy proposition. He wanted yards. He needed yards. As Brown’s mark loomed closer, the yards were all he thought of. “I loved Walter,” said one teammate. “But he could be selfish in some very ugly ways.”
Nobody grasped Payton better than the Tribune’s Pierson, one of the sport’s great beat writers/B.S. detectors. In the aftermath of the Bears’ 21–14 loss to the Los Angeles Rams on November 6, Payton—who cleared eleven thousand career yards that day—told the scribe that, “I’d rather turn back the eleven thousand for a win today.” Pierson ran the quote, but only with the addendum, “Payton remarked typically but not convincingly” (emphasis added).
“Despite what Walter said, it was clearly obvious that surpassing Brown meant everything to him,” said Pierson. “He liked to make no big deal of it, but it was enormous.
“He wanted that record.”
For the men and women who composed the National Football League’s media relations and corporate communications divisions, 1984 was going to be the year that sold itself.
With Jim Brown’s record all but guaranteed to be broken, the action and intrigue needed no extra hype. Better yet, there were not one, but two, running backs fighting for the honor. Along with Payton, Pittsburgh halfback Franco Harris, a twelve-year veteran with four Super Bowl rings to his credit, was nearing the threshold. In fact, at the conclusion of 1983, Harris actually led Payton by 325 yards, 11,950 to 11,625.
Battle lines were drawn: Payton was flashy, Harris was pedestrian. Payton abused his body, Harris ran for the sidelines rather than absorb unnecessary abuse. Payton played for a perennial dog, Harris played for a perennial contender. “They were total opposites—both great, but very different,” said Jerry Muckensturm, the longtime Chicago linebacker. “The biggest difference was approach. Franco avoided you, Walter looked to kill you.”
The Payton-Harris showdown had all the makings of a classic sports battle; quite possibly the greatest one-on-one chase since Roger Maris and Mickey Mantle raced to surpass Babe Ruth’s sixty home runs some twenty-three years earlier.
With one small problem: Walter Payton was a free agent.
Not that this had ever mattered before. NFL free agents could peddle their wares, call around, beg for a change of scenery. But, come day’s end, owners and general managers knew it violated eight thousand different codes to make a bid on an opposing team’s “property.” Even as he was in his prime and running wild, Payton’s independence in 1978 and ’81 had generated zero interest.
Times, however, were changing. Beginning with its 1983 debut season, the United States Football League (USFL) had made clear its intent to directly confront Goliath, no holds barred. The most deafening salvo was fired on February 23, 1983, when Herschel Walker, the reigning Heisman Trophy winner from the University of Georgia, signed a three-year, $4.2 million deal to play with the New Jersey Generals. With that bombshell, NFL franchises found themselves scratching and clawing to retain their own. It was a fight not merely for quality players, but for legitimacy. The more stars to defect, the stronger the spring-based USFL became.
There was, of course, no bigger NFL star than Payton. Which