National Football League - Da Bears! how the 1985 monsters of the midway became the greatest team in NFL history

Copyright 2010 by Steve Delsohn

All rights reserved.
Published in the United States by Crown Archetype, an imprint of the Crown Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.
www.crownpublishing.com

Crown Archetype with colophon is a trademark of Random House, Inc.

Insert and title-page photographs copyright 2010 by Bob Baer Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Delsohn, Steve.

Da Bears! : how the 1985 monsters of the midway became the greatest team in NFL history / Steve Delsohn.1st ed.
p. cm.
1. Chicago Bears (Football team)History.
2. National Football LeagueHistory. I. Title.
GV956.C5D45 2010
796.332640977311dc22
2010016775

eISBN: 978-0-307-46469-9

v3.1

For Eilene Delsohn, my mother, a true Chicagoan

CONTENTS

UP AND THEN WAY DOWN IN 84

A ggression was a weapon which Mike Ditka believed in. During the 1960s, he had been a relentless tight end for the Chicago Bears. Now, at age 45, he was in his third year as their combative head coach. Thus he viewed the next football game as more than a game. It was a litmus test to see just how ferocious his 1984 Bears were.

It was the first week of November and they were getting ready to play the Los Angeles Raiders. Even in a league understood to be violent, the Raiders were historically the biggest bullies. They were also the defending NFL champions, having dismantled the Washington Redskins 389 in the previous Super Bowl. The 1984 Bears were a pretty good football team trying to figure out if they could be great.

If you want to defeat your opponent, you got to out-hit him, says Ditka. People say, Well, you need to out-think him. No! You gotta out-hit him. Thats what football players understand. Its like a boxer. You hit him in the nose enough times hes gonna respect you. The Raiders were always a physical football team, and thats what we talked about before the game. I said, Were going toe to toe with these guys. Its gonna be a heavyweight match, and were gonna slug with them.

On November 6, 1984, the Bears mauled the Raiders 176. This being Chicago, it was windy and cold on that Sunday afternoon at Soldier Field. This being the 1984 Bears, the offense did just enough, led by its beloved warrior Walter Payton, who gained 111 yards and scored both of his teams two touchdowns. On defense, the Bears made the Raiders look weak and confused, forcing 3 interceptions and 2 fumbles and sacking the Raider quarterbacks 9 times. Read that again9 timesbecause it doesnt happen too often. The single-game NFL record is 12, which is held by five different teams, including the 84 Bears, who did it later that season against the Lions.

Against the Raiders, it seemed as if the Bears competed against each other to see who could beat the snot out of the quarterback first. First they fractured Marc Wilsons arm and knocked him out of the game. Then they knocked out his replacement, David Humm, with a knee injury. Wilson was forced to reenter the game and found himself getting knocked out a second time. Curry Kirkpatrick, writing for Sports Illustrated during his heyday, was deeply impressed. So brutal was the Bear onslaught that Al Davis was seen covering his face with his hands. Just breathe, baby.

The NFLs closest observers were also starting to see that the Bear offensive line had become increasingly nasty in its own right. Kurt Becker started that game at right guard for Chicago. A six-foot-five, 280-pound Michigan graduate with a maniacal streak, he frequently tangled that Sunday with future Hall of Fame lineman Howie Long, who later told Sports Illustrated he finally screamed at Becker, Im going to get you in the parking lot after the game and beat you up in front of your family!

Becker says Long tried to follow through on his threat. Howie was out of his mind by the end of the game, he recalls. He tried to come into our locker room and confront me. Then he wouldnt get on their team bus. He was looking for me in the parking lot.

Years later, Emery Moorehead, Chicagos multitalented tight end, ran into the great Raider running back Marcus Allen, and they began reminiscing about the day the 84 Bears made the 84 Raiders look soft.

Marcus said, after we knocked out both of their quarterbacks, they wanted to put in Ray Guy, their punter, because he was supposed to be their emergency quarterback, says Moorehead. But Guy refused to go in. Then all of them were arguing at halftime about who was going back inwas it gonna be David Humm or Marc Wilson? Nobody wanted to go back in. Thats how intimidating our defense was then. You cant even hit guys today the way our defense hit them. Youd be suspended.

Ditka, who doesnt joke about this kind of thing, says the 1984 win against the Raiders was the most brutal football game Ive ever watched. Did you see how many guys they were carrying off the field for both teams?

In the second quarter, the Bears lost their own starting quarterback, Jim McMahon, when he scrambled away from the pressure and ran for a first down before getting pinned between two Raiders. On the CBS telecast it looked fairly benign, but in reality one of the Raiders had struck McMahon in his side with a helmet. His offensive teammates told him to leave the game. He refused and remained for three more plays, but at halftime he had trouble breathing. McMahon tried to play again in the third quarter, and this time his offensive linemen ordered him to the sideline.

Jim got hit in the kidney, and it came over the bone in his rib cage and his kidney got lacerated, says McMahons longtime agent Steve Zucker. I was in the stands, and I met him in the locker room. He was pissing blood, I mean pure blood, and he was in intense pain. He was in agony.

When asked now if he was scared, McMahon doesnt say yes, and maybe he wasnt. According to several teammates, McMahon was never afraid of anything. But he does say, I could have died. It was an internal organ, so it aint no joke.

Adds McMahon, They wanted to remove it, but I knew my career would be over. The bottom part of it was gone, and it was cut in about five places. It was bleeding for two days. The doctor told me, Look, youre gonna die if we dont cut it out. I said, You cant cut this out, you cut it out and Im finished. Just keep giving me the morphine and leave me alone.

Thats what he did. I told him Id sign a waiver, he wouldnt be responsible, but he wasnt cutting that out of me. On Tuesday night, they came in and gave me a transfusion because they said they had to operate on Wednesday. I said, Just give me until the morning, and if its still bleeding you do what you have to do. Overnight this thing just started closing up by itself. The doctor still doesnt know how the hell it happened. Ive had my knees, my shoulders, my ribs, and everything else blown up. But I never felt anything like that in my whole life.