Sweetness_ The Enigmatic Life of Walter Payton - Jeff Pearlman [194]
The real Bears finally reported back to work on October 15, and Payton had high hopes for the return game at Tampa Bay ten days later. Instead, it was another downer. Though Chicago prevailed, 27–26, Payton was limited to thirty yards on six carries, and he fumbled yet again. Just how poorly did the day go? Before the game Payton agreed to meet Deana Reel, a seventeenyear-old from Asheville, North Carolina, who suffered from cystic fibrosis. Reel and her grandmother Helen were so inspired by Payton’s example of overcoming the odds that they flew to Tampa to meet him. Payton hugged Deana and handed her an autographed football as the cameras flashed.
It was a hoax.
According to a report in The Lakeland Ledger, Deana had never heard of Walter Payton. Her grandmother put Deana up to it. “I don’t really follow football,” Deana later said. “I never knew any of the Bears by name. Just some guy named ‘Fridge.’ ”
Following the game, Payton received a random call from Bill Cosby, who was at the peak of his fame as the star of The Cosby Show. “I know what’s going on,” he told Payton. “Don’t let it get you down. You know whose picture is up in Theo’s room. We didn’t take it down.”
The Bears played nine more regular-season games, and except for fleeting flashes of brilliance, Payton’s efforts were futile. He could still block relatively well, and did so valiantly on Anderson’s behalf. (“He was an excellent pass blocker and an adequate run blocker,” said Anderson. “In Walter’s defense, he never had to run block much before.”) But there was no denying that the old Sweetness was gone, never to return.
“Walter was over,” said Caito. “He could still play, and he probably wanted to stick around, but it wasn’t the same. His body was shot. He was bone on bone in some areas in his knees. He’d gained thousands of yards, but he’d taken a massive whuppin’ and now he was paying for it.”
“Walter couldn’t get to the corner as well as he used to,” said Al Harris, the veteran defensive end. “Neal was young and fast and he could catch the ball, and he needed to play. The hard thing with running backs is that, if you play long enough, you take all those licks and it destroys your body.”
On November 14, Randy Minkoff of the United Press International (UPI) wrote a piece that appeared in hundreds of newspapers nationwide. It was a stinging 790-word critique of Payton’s game. The take was harsh—and true.
There are ample examples of all-time great professional athletes staying around one year too long.
Athletes past their prime often tarnish their image by getting one extra campaign out of a body that should have called it quits earlier.
Willie Mays with the New York Mets, Bob Cousy with the Cincinnati Royals, and Franco Harris with the Seattle Seahawks come to mind as of late.
It’s premature to put Walter Payton in that category—yet. But Payton, in his thirteenth and what he insists is his final NFL season, isn’t going out the way many people would have liked.
The whole year was a disaster. The Bears were scheduled to play at San Francisco on a Monday Night Football game on December 14. During practice