Sweetness_ The Enigmatic Life of Walter Payton - Jeff Pearlman [164]
Even with 12,400 yards, Walter Payton remained a kid.
CHAPTER 19
SHUFFLE
IN HINDSIGHT, KNOWING WHAT WE KNOW NOW, IT SEEMS EASY TO ASSIGN ah-ha! moments to the Chicago Bears’ inevitable greatness.
Ah-ha!—when the franchise hired Mike Ditka!
Ah-ha!—when the franchise drafted Jim McMahon!
Ah-ha!—when the franchise recorded “The Super Bowl Shuffle”!
Ah-ha!
Ask members of the team, however, and the dominance and splendor of the Bears can be dated to November 4, 1984, when the rough, tough, defending Super Bowl champion Los Angeles Raiders came to Chicago.
This was the game members of the Bears had been waiting for. Los Angeles was known as the franchise of renegades and misfits, bad-assess and outright terrors. Among the team’s stars were Lyle Alzado, the steroid-loaded defensive end who had once boxed Muhammad Ali; Vann McElroy, the game’s most ferocious safety; Matt Millen, the guided missile of a linebacker; and Howie Long, football’s top pass rusher. The 7-2 Raiders snarled and barked and spewed nonstop trash, and if the antics themselves didn’t intimidate, the unyielding physicality did. “We were a team of hitters,” said McElroy. “We hit.”
The Bears entered the game with a 6-3 record, but fans and opponents remained skeptical. In past years Chicago had gotten off to fast starts under Jack Pardee and Neill Armstrong, only to inevitably fall flat.
“It’s like a boxer,” Mike Ditka said. “You hit him in the nose enough times he’s gonna respect you. The Raiders were always a physical football team, and that’s what we talked about before the game. I said, ‘We’re going toe to toe with these guys. It’s gonna be a heavyweight match, and we’re gonna slug with them.’ ”
The day was perfect—fifty-one degrees, with minimal humidity. Payton ran for 111 yards and two touchdowns, and walked off the field with his head pounding, his knees throbbing, his fingers twisted and crooked. He didn’t get the worst of it.
Chicago’s 17–6 win was an ode to violence. Fights broke out following seemingly every other play. McMahon, the Bears gutsy quarterback, had to leave the game after lacerating his kidney. When he went to the bathroom and urinated blood, the team sent him to a hospital. “I could have died,” McMahon said. “It was bleeding for two days. The doctor told me, ‘Look, you’re gonna die if we don’t cut [the kidney] out.’ I said, ‘You can’t cut it out. You cut it out and I’m finished. Just keep giving me morphine and leave me alone.’ That’s what he did.” McMahon remained in the hospital for ten days. His season was over.
The Bears sacked Los Angeles’ quarterbacks nine times—knocking starter Marc Wilson out of the game with hand and head injuries, then doing the same to David Humm by bruising his knee. “Our third-string quarterback was [veteran punter] Ray Guy, and we’re standing there watching him about to pee on himself,” said McElroy. “At halftime [Coach] Tom Flores is talking to Ray about possibly having to go in, and we’re looking all over for a pack of cigarettes to give him to calm his nerves. Because he was freaking out.”
A hobbled Wilson wound up returning to the game, but it mattered not. No Raiders quarterback was going to survive the Bears defense. “They were just sick,” said McElroy. “Everyone was threatening everyone else, guys trying to kill each other. On that day, we had no shot.”
Shelby Jordan, the Raiders’ offensive tackle, slugged defensive end Richard Dent in the face and later accused him of excessive head slapping and throwing elbows into his nose. Late in the game, after Long was repeatedly cheap-shotted by right guard Kurt Becker, the Raider star screamed, “I’m going to get you in the parking lot after the game and beat you up in front of your family!” Becker laughed—but there was Long, after the players had dressed into street clothes, standing outside the Bears locker room, waiting for his nemesis. Becker