Sweetness_ The Enigmatic Life of Walter Payton - Jeff Pearlman [190]
Despite this, Ditka still believed that Payton should, at worst, split carries with Anderson; that he remained a hard-nosed workhorse who could be counted on for one thousand yards and eight to ten touchdowns in 1987. “I had no intent of starting Neal over Walter,” Ditka said. “It wasn’t time yet.”
That was the coach’s opinion. The front office, however, had other ideas. Shortly after the conclusion of the 1986 season, Bud Holmes received a call from McCaskey, who was blunt in his assessment of Payton’s remaining value. “We’re ready for Walter to come to the conclusion of his career,” McCaskey said. “But we want to do it in the best way possible. We don’t want to let Sweetness go, but we have other plans for the upcoming year.”
Holmes wasn’t shocked, merely disappointed. Payton’s contract had expired, and he was looking for one final deal. Holmes knew his client believed he had another two or three quality seasons left in his body, and he wanted Payton—not the suits in Chicago’s administrative suites—determining his own exit. And yet, Holmes, like Ditka, knew whereof he spoke. Approaching his thirty-fourth birthday, Payton had reached a point of diminishing returns. He couldn’t cut like he used to. His pass routes lacked the crispness of previous years. Worst of all, he always seemed to be suffering. Throughout his career, Payton had taken tremendous pride in his toughness. Teammates loaded up on injections, and Payton refused to go anywhere near a needle. Teammates complained openly about this sprain, that bruise, this twist, that gash—and Payton kept quiet. Steroids were all over Chicago’s locker room (said Fred Caito, the longtime trainer: “If we turned in guys for using steroids, half the team would be gone.”), but Payton refused to touch them.
Now, however, he was regularly popping the painkiller Darvon, numbing his maladies as he also ignored the side-effect warnings. Doctors across the U.S. prescribed the drug—in moderation—as a painkiller, as well as for the treatment of diarrhea. In large doses, however, Darvon was believed by many watchdog groups to be a contributor to suicide. It resulted in shallow breathing, slow heartbeat, confusion, seizures, and jaundice. With alcohol, it caused—among other things—liver damage. The suggested dosage was one 65 mg tablet every four hours. Payton’s intake far exceeded this.
Holmes didn’t love the idea of a reduced Payton enduring the suffering of more hits, but he wanted his client to go out the right way. When McCaskey told the agent the organization might be forced to cut its greatest star, Holmes countered with an offer of his own. In mid-May, Payton and Holmes had flown to New York to meet with NFL commissioner Pete Rozelle about the possibility of becoming the league’s first minority owner. Thanks to the efforts of Jesse Jackson, who was putting public pressure on Major League Baseball and the NFL to hire more minorities as managers, coaches, and front-office executives, Rozelle was intrigued by the idea of Payton one day heading an expansion outfit. “Rozelle said he would give Walter one of two things—the right to lead a team in Oakland or the right to do so in Phoenix,” Holmes said. “We wanted Arizona, but there were already other people focused on that location. So I met with the Oakland people, and we had a deal tentatively worked out where Walter would come out there and they’d put up money, build a stadium, and hope for the best outcome.”
A couple of days later, Holmes met with Walter and Connie at their home. He laid out all the possibilities, then asked, bluntly, “Walter, are you ready to move on, or do you want to keep playing until you no longer can?” Payton had spent the off-season hearing the whispers about his fate. The talk was embarrassing, agonizing, infuriating. In the way all great athletes know they can still play (even when they can’t), Payton was certain the Bears needed