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Soldier Field erupted as the substitute—visibly calm, internally petrified—jogged into the huddle, kneeled, and called a play. “He took charge,” said Jay Hilgenberg, the center. “One time he said, ‘Screen left to Cal [running back Calvin Thomas] over there.’ The rest of the time he had it all right.” Payton took six snaps, all from the shotgun position. One of his passes fell incomplete. The other was intercepted by Green Bay’s Tom Flynn. (“It was an innocuous play,” recalled Flynn. “But I’ve always told people that I’m probably in the record books as the only person to intercept Walter Payton’s pass from the quarterback position.”) He ran four times for twenty-five yards. Later in the game, with Lisch back at quarterback, Payton took a handoff and threw a two-yard touchdown pass to Matt Suhey. He also rushed for 175 yards and a touchdown. Chicago lost 20–14, but it didn’t matter.

“Walter did everything you could possibly do on a football field,” said Lynn Dickey, Green Bay’s backup quarterback that day. “I can’t tell you how many times I’d hoped he’d get the flu before we played them.”

The Bears entered the 1984 play-offs having lost two of their final three games and lacking a credible starting quarterback. Under pressure, Ditka came up with a plan for beating favored Washington, the two-time defending NFC champions, in the divisional game at RFK Stadium. “We were gonna ride Walter,” he said, “and hope the defense took care of the rest.”

In his first postseason appearance in five seasons, Payton dazzled. He ran for 104 yards on twenty-four carries, and early in the second quarter took the handoff from Fuller, rolled wide, and tossed a nineteen-yard touchdown pass to tight end Pat Dunsmore for a 10–3 lead. “Walter had a phenomenal arm—he could throw a ball fifty yards, easily,” said Dunsmore. “He didn’t have the best touch, but he got it right to me.” Chicago’s defense pummeled quarterback Joe Theismann and the Bears won, 23–19. Immediately afterward, as his teammates celebrated, Payton headed straight for the Washington locker room. Sprawled out on a training table was Ken Huff, the Redskins’ right guard who had broken his right leg. Nine years earlier, Huff was drafted by Baltimore one spot ahead of Payton. “I hadn’t seen Walter since 1975, and here he was, checking if I was OK,” said Huff. “That just floored me.”

Chicago’s players celebrated loudly in the visiting locker room, but the festivities were short-lived. They would travel to San Francisco the following weekend to play the 49ers in the NFC title game.

The NFC West champions had just completed a 15-1 season, and opened the play-offs by demolishing the New York Giants, 21–10. In the week leading up to Bears vs. 49ers, Chicago’s coaches and players strutted and crowed, bragged and boasted. The Bears were listed as nine-and-a-half-point underdogs, and Ditka loved it. “The German army couldn’t beat us with nine and a half points,” he growled.

“We’re not going to lose the game,” Payton said—and the words wound up hanging on the bulletin board in the 49ers locker room. “We know what we have to do to win at San Francisco,” Ditka said—and the words wound up hanging on the bulletin board in the 49ers locker room.

FINAL SCORE:

SAN FRANCISCO 23

CHICAGO 0

The game was uglier than the outcome. Before 61,040 rabid fans at Candlestick Park, the 49ers sacked Fuller nine times and held Chicago to 186 total yards. “At halftime Ditka fired Ed Hughes,” said Jay Saldi, the veteran tight end. “He was livid because we hadn’t scored any points, and he screamed at Ed, ‘Get the fuck out of the locker room!’ Ed lit up a Marlboro and left.” While Payton ran for a respectable ninety-two yards, few of his twenty-two carries held much significance. “What stood out,” wrote Christine Brennan in The Washington Post, “was Walter Payton futilely churning toward the sideline, looking for yardage that didn’t exist.”

Ditka and his players could accept the domination. The 49ers were talented and experienced and widely believed to be chemically enhanced. “They beat the shit out of