The 1985 Bears were unforgettable. They were
ferocious, colorful, and controversial and their defense was the best that I
have ever seen. Rich Cohen has written a book that does justice to that
team and its legacy. It is, quite simply, the best book about football
that I have ever read.
The best sports books are
never just about sports. They are about
life, about culture and about ourselves.
Monsters: The 1985 Chicago Bears
and the Wild Heart of Football is one of those books. It is part Fever Pitch in the way that Cohen
shares the joy, heartbreak and obsessions of a fan. It is part Boys of Summer as he tracks
down and interviews the broken, fading warriors, now 20 years retired. It is also part history as Cohen retells the
story of the Chicago Bears and its founder Papa Bear, George Halas, who practically
invented the National Football League. Even
though Cohen is only writing about football, he manages to capture something of
the energy, rhythms and history of 20th century America. He traces the origins of this violent game, played
by the children of immigrants in factory towns like Decatur, Canton, Akron, Muncie and Racine. This game would evolve
into our national religion.
Rich Cohen grew up in
Glencoe Illinois, an affluent lakeside suburb of Chicago that was home to Ferris
Bueller. In 1985, Cohen was 17 years
old. It was the age of Reagan and MTV –
a golden age for John Hughes movies but a miserable time to be a sports fan in
Chicago. The Cubs and White Sox were
legendary losers. Their last World
Series wins had come in 1908 and 1917.
In hockey, the Blackhawks were competitive but they hadn’t won a Stanley
Cup since 1961. Hope had arrived on the
hardwood in the form of Michael Jordan, but in 1985, he was still finding his
air. He was a rookie on a mediocre
Bulls team.
Chicago’s most recent sports
championship had come in 1963. On a
frigid day in December, just one month after JFK was assassinated, the Chicago
Bears beat the New York Giants 14-10 at Wrigley Field to win the NFL
title. The Bears were best known for
their ferocious defense, the famed “Monsters of the Midway” (a nickname that actually
originated with the University of Chicago football team coached by Amos Alonzo
Stagg). The Bears team of 1963 also
featured an outstanding 24-year-old tight end, from the coal-mining town of
Carnegie Pennsylvania. His name was Mike
Ditka.
After 1963, the Bears
plummeted to mediocrity and despite fielding some of the finest players in NFL
history – Dick Butkus, Gale Sayers and eventually, Walter Payton – they lost
more than they won. Things started to
turn around in the early 1980s when defensive coordinator Buddy Ryan defense began
building a solid defense, called the 46, after the number worn by safety, Doug
Plank. But the turning point came in,
1982 when George Halas hired Mike Ditka as head coach. Ditka, the gum-snapping,
sweater-vest-wearing, bullet headed martinet with the icy blue stare, brought a
winning attitude and was the perfect symbol for Chicago. Tough, unyielding, unforgiving and, on
occasion, completely out of control. He
would turn things around.
Like Cohen, I also misspent my
youthful passion rooting for a bad team, the NY Giants of the 1970s (and a
worse one, the Mets). For me, the rise
of the Bears was fascinating to behold.
I had always admired the Bears.
Like my Giants, they had the old school mystique of a storied franchise that
had fallen on hard times. I loved watching
those NFL Films clips of Butkus and the earlier Monsters of the Midway of the
1950s and 60s, their white uniforms covered in mud, their hands and forearms
taped and bloodied. The Greco-Roman columns
at Soldier Field made them seem like gladiators. Their breath in the frigid cold poured out of their
facemasks like dragons breathing fire.
By
the middle of the 1980s, the Bears started playing well. It happened just as my Giants started playing
well. But in 1985 the Bears were
better. Better than anyone. The defense was
frightening. Mike Singletary, Dan
Hampton, Richard Dent, Steve McMichael, Otis Wilson, Wilbur Marshall, Gary
Fencik were magnificently brutal. On
offense, Walter Payton was past his prime but still a joy to behold, gracefully
high-stepping through defenses, palming the ball like a toy, and, and lowering
his shoulder to hit linebackers before they could hit him. Then there was Jim McMahon, the rebel, rock
star quarterback who broke the rules, swaggered and won. And there was the media sensation, William
“the Fridge” Perry and then the Super Bowl Shuffle. The Bears were everywhere and for some
reason, I absolutely loved it.
They finished the regular
season 15-1. Then they embarrassed my
beloved Giants in the Playoffs 21-0, and, if anything, the score made the game
seem closer than it actually was. OK, I
may be biased and perhaps tad bitter about the memory, but I think Cohen pours
it on a bit too much here. Giant fans will
wince when remembering how punter, Sean Landeta whiffed on a punt, leading to
the Bears first touchdown. Landeta says that
a gust of wind misdirected the ball just before he was to kick it but Cohen
doesn’t buy it. He’s so taken with the
mythology of the mighty Bears that he thinks that Landeta was so terrified of
the Bear onslaught, that he couldn’t keep his eye on the ball. But why?
Landeta was a punter, not a quarterback.
Yes, many players trembled before the mighty Bears, but punters don’t
get hit. In any event, it was a brutal
loss, but I can forgive the Bears for this humiliation and I can forgive Cohen
for making me relive it. After all, the
Bears humiliated everyone in 1985. They
beat the Cowboys 44-0. They beat the
Rams in the NFC Championship Game, 24-0, and they beat the Patriots in the
Super Bowl 46-10 in what was then the most lopsided result in Super Bowl
history.
For me, things got better. The
Giants rebounded from this loss and won the Super Bowl the following year. And since 1986, they’ve won three more. But it has now been 28 years since the Bear’s
Super Bowl win of 1985. In that time,
Chicago has moved forward with urban renewal and the Bulls, Blackhawks and even the White Sox have
all won championships. But the Bears
have not. Another generation of Chicago
football fans has grown up knowing only frustration and the disappointment of
close calls. For them, the legend of the
1985 Bears looms larger than ever.
Cohen’s look back at the
casualties, the retired and fallen players, is especially poignant. Walter Payton died of a rare liver disease
in 1999, but also struggled with drugs and depression after he retired. The Bear’s hard-hitting All-Pro safety, Dave
Duerson, committed suicide in 2011 at the age of 50. He shot himself in the chest so that his
brain could be studied. Sure enough, researchers
found he suffered from chronic traumatic encephalopathy, the result of
repeated blows to the head. The symptoms
include dementia, memory loss, aggression and depression. Jim McMahon suffers from memory loss and is
one of 75 retired players suing the NFL for allegedly failing to disclose what
it knew about the dangers of concussions. William Perry had problems with alcohol, gained
weight and suffers from a disorder to the nervous system.
Cohen brings his skills as a journalist as he
recounts his visits with the retired players.
There’s magic and real joy in the memories but the telling is also bittersweet.
The tale of the retired athlete is often a sad one. Most of us are just figuring things out when
we reach our thirties. But the
professional athlete is finished. Hopefully,
he is smart with his money. (Gary
Fencik, the All-Pro “Hit Man” from Yale is an investment advisor.) Many are not.
There is often physical pain, the toll exacted from the years of pounding.
Of course many find other paths and enjoy
the fulfillment that comes with family and career. But these are not the same as the rush, excitement
and feeling of brotherhood that came on Sunday.
The reverence that Chicagoans
have for Mike Ditka is the stuff of both legend and caricature. Cohen takes us beyond the Ditka of Saturday
Night Live and the State Farm commercials and helps us appreciate the man and
understand why his bond with Chicago’s football fans was so real and so deep. After the Super Bowl win of 1985, the Bears under
Ditka enjoyed several excellent seasons, winning 4 division titles but they
failed to make it back to the Super Bowl.
In 1992, the Bears went 5-11 and lost 8 of the last 9 games. Rich Cohen was 24 and working in New York for
Rolling Stone magazine when he learned that the Bears had fired Ditka. When he heard the news, he left the building
and sat down on the curb and began crying.
He knew that something was over and it wasn’t coming back.
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