Sweetness_ The Enigmatic Life of Walter Payton - Jeff Pearlman [183]
And what of Walter Payton?
He pouted.
The fumble kicked off the funk. What catapulted it to a new level, however, was the fact that, as the Bears rolled up forty-six points, Payton was never granted entrance into the end zone. When Suhey ran for an eleven-yard touchdown late in the first quarter, Payton was the lead blocker. When McMahon ran an option bootleg for a score early in the second quarter, Payton trailed him, waiting for a pitch that never arrived. When McMahon dove over the top from one yard out in the third quarter, Payton was sent wide right as a receiver.
With 3:22 remaining in the third quarter, Payton suffered the ultimate indignity. Chicago led 37–3, and again found itself positioned on New En- gland’s one-yard line. Ditka sent Perry into the game and lined him up alongside Payton in the backfield. When McMahon took the snap, he handed the ball to the Fridge, who trampled over McGrew into the end zone. As Perry leapt to his feet to spike the football, Blackmon reached out to his fallen teammate. “’Grew, you OK?” he asked.
“Damn,” said McGrew. “I just made a highlight film for the next fifty years.”
McGrew smiled. Even in defeat, he could laugh at the insanity of a 325-pound defensive tackle rushing for a Super Bowl touchdown. Payton, however, wasn’t grinning. He returned to the sideline and took a seat on the bench. Early in the fourth quarter Jerry Vainisi, Chicago’s general manager, noticed that Payton had yet to score. He rushed down to the field from the press box and reminded Ditka. “I know . . . I know,” the coach responded. “We’re trying to get him one.”
It never happened.
“Those last two minutes of the game were agony for Walter,” said Covert. “You could see it on his face—he just wanted out of there.” When the final whistle sounded and the Chicago Bears were officially Super Bowl champions, Payton headed directly to the locker room. He entered, tore off his jersey, and slammed his shoulder pads to the floor.
“If you looked at Walter,” said Ken Valdiserri, the team’s director of media relations, “you would have thought we’d lost.”
“For the ten years I had played with him, Walter claimed it didn’t matter how many yards he got, how many touchdowns he scored—it was about winning,” said Brian Baschnagel, the veteran receiver who, because of a seasonending knee injury, watched the game from above in the coaches’ box. “That was the attitude I took, too. I didn’t care how many passes I caught, as long as the Bears won. And I always felt Walter felt the exact same way. But when he reacted the way he did . . . it was the exact opposite of what he had claimed to be as an athlete.”
As Chicago’s players and coaches reached the locker room, Payton was nowhere to be found. Teammates wanted to congratulate him. Ditka wanted to tell him the Bears couldn’t have done it without him. Members of the media, quickly stampeding into the room, wanted to know how it felt to finally fulfill a dream.
Valdiserri and Bill McGrane, the team’s marketing director, were the first to reach Payton. His eyes were red, and tears streamed down his cheeks. “He didn’t score and he didn’t feel as if he’d contributed to the win,” said Valdisseri. “I found it to be such an odd and awkward moment, because that’s not what he represented throughout his career. I never knew him to bask in his statistics. At least that’s not the way he made it seem. I thought it was a complete paradox.”
Valdisseri and McGrane begged Payton to come out of the broom closet. “Walter,” Valdisseri said, “how is it going to look if you don’t talk? Here we just won the first Super Bowl for the Bears, and this should be the highest point of your career. Don’t let your disappointment in your own performance bring down the moment.”
Payton wasn’t having it. “I ain’t no damned monkey on a string,” he snapped. “I don’t have to jump up and smile just because TV wants me to.”
He was livid at Ditka for ignoring him and