Sweetness (58 page)

Many of Payton’s teammates were perplexed and disappointed. Some were mad at the running back for his selfishness. Who cared about a touchdown in the Super Bowl? What difference did it make? “He felt like it would have been the crowning jewel on his career,” said Covert. “But Walter didn’t need a crowning jewel.” Others were perplexed by Ditka slighting their beloved superstar. Maury Buford, the team’s first-year punter, thought back to the preseason, when the coach embarrassed him during a Monday afternoon film session. “Ditka never could pronounce my name,” said Buford. “In front of everyone he said, ‘Murry, Morty, Marty . . . whatever the fuck your name is. You better get your shit together and stop shanking punts, or I’ll have enough punters in here tomorrow to make your head spin.’ I was crushed. Well, from behind me I feel a huge hand on my shoulder. It was Walter, and he whispers, ‘Don’t worry about that, Maury. Ditka pulls this shit all the fucking time.’ That’s who Walter was—someone who’d die for a teammate. He deserved a touchdown.”

McMahon, the owner of two scores, kicked himself for not taking action into his own hands. “When they called the play for Perry,” he said, “I should have just ignored it and given the ball to Walter.” Jay Hilgenberg wondered how such an oversight could have happened. “We scored forty-six points—why couldn’t Walter have scored at least once?” the center said. “In hindsight, there’s no excuse.”

Nobody felt worse than Ditka, who through the years came to love Payton as he had few other players. In the heat of the game, he simply failed to consider what a touchdown would have meant. “I would never do anything to hurt Walter,” Ditka said. “As I’ve said repeatedly, I wouldn’t want anyone else carrying the ball in any situation than him. Not Jim Brown, not Gale Sayers, no one. I scored a touchdown in a Super Bowl, and I wish I could take that and give it to him. Because the last thing I wanted to hear was, at his greatest career moment, Walter Payton feeling down.

“He was,” said Ditka, “the best player I ever coached. And, in hindsight, he deserved better.”

CHAPTER 21

AFTERMATH

WHEN A FRANCHISE PLAYER WINS A SUPER BOWL, THE WORLD BECOMES HIS oyster.

No, things didn’t go as planned for Walter Payton in New Orleans. And no, he would not soon forget Mike Ditka failing to allow him to score a touchdown against the Patriots.

But if Bud Holmes had concerns that his client’s petulance would leave a lasting—and damaging—impression on sports fans and corporate America, those fears were quickly put to rest. In the days and weeks following the big game, a smiling, giddy, reenergized Payton could be found everywhere. He was asked to attend a state dinner at the White House by President Ronald Reagan, America’s foremost football fan (Brian Mulroney, Canada’s prime minister, used the occasion to invite Payton to his home for some fishing). As always, he appeared at the annual Chicago Auto Show, signing autographs on behalf of Buick. Both the Cubs and White Sox requested he throw out the first ball at their home openers (he went with the Cubbies). He made the first public political statement of his life, using an NFL luncheon to expound on the strife in Libya (Payton: “It shows the uncertainty of what this world is heading for”). He participated in Hands Across America, a four-thousandmile chain of hand-holders from New York to California, and was saluted by Jackson, Mississippi, with “Walter Payton Day” and a parade in his honor.

In one of the proudest moments of his career, Wheaties told Payton it wanted to place his image on the front of its cereal boxes—an honor bestowed on only four previous athletes (Bob Richards, Bruce Jenner, Mary Lou Retton, and Pete Rose). “To be on the box is sort of like a fairy tale that eventually came true,” he said. “Because in the world we live in, it’s a fantasy.”

Payton’s strangest post–Super Bowl endeavor came in the form of a rap single/video called “Rappin’ Together,” which he recorded with—of all people—William Perry as a follow-up to “The Super Bowl Shuffle.” For some inexplicable reason, the idea sounded like a good one at the time: Take two football stars, hand them a sheet of lyrics written by four Evanston, Illinois, high school students, shove them in a recording studio, and let the magic happen. “There were two guys who knew I was a music promoter, and they said, ‘Why don’t you get Walter and the Fridge to do a rap together?’ ” said Lewis Pitzele, who became the song’s co-executive producer. “I thought it was a wonderful idea.” At the time, the genre was still considered fertile ground for goof ball fluff (think Rodney Dangerfield’s “Rappin’ Rodney”). The words:

Together as a team we have a dream.
Everyone will stand together.
If we hold hands in this great land.
We could make life a whole lot better.
‘Cause the people are the world we are the ones.
Everyone should get involved.
If we stand together and lock our hands.
Our problems can be solved.

Blessed with laughably bad lyrics and the inarticulate Perry, the “Rappin’ Together” cassette single sold a couple of thousand copies before finding itself in Illinois’ scattered bargain bins. “Walter was happy with the project,” said Pitzele. “And if the space shuttle [
Challenger
] hadn’t crashed the same week it was released, it would have been a huge hit.

“But,” Pitzele said, “it wasn’t.”

Though Walter Payton felt as if he were finally getting his due, reality as a professional football player can be harsh.

On April 29, 1986, with the twenty-seventh selection of the first round of the NFL Draft, the Chicago Bears selected Neal Anderson out of the University of Florida.

Neal Anderson—the running back.

It was, of course, inevitable. At some point the Bears had to start grooming Payton’s successor, and Jerry Vainisi, the team’s fourth-year general manager, rightly determined that the time was now. Despite all the praise and accolades coming Payton’s way, he wasn’t the same player he had been in years past. He was slower, more mechanical, less willing to deliver a hit. Still great, still tough, but no longer transcendent. “Walter had played eleven years, and even he knew we needed a running back,” said Vainisi. “He was somewhat uncomfortable with it, especially because Neal was very good and chomping at the bit to play. Walter had a lot of pride.”

So did Anderson. Florida’s all-time rushing leader in yards, touchdowns, and attempts, the twenty-one-year-old Graceville, Florida, native was the first top pick of the Bears to ever miss his introductory press conference in the name of academics. “He’s a scholar,” an irked Mike Ditka said in explaining Anderson’s absence to take two final exams. Anderson further annoyed the organization by holding out for most of training camp. When he finally signed a four-year, $1.3 million contract, Anderson reported to the Lake Forest complex and was ordered by the other running backs to fetch them doughnuts.

He steadfastly refused. As a freshman at Florida back in 1982, Anderson was told all first-year players were required to shave their heads. “It was a Gator tradition, but I wasn’t having it,” he said. “Some of the upperclassmen, these big linemen, broke into my room one night when I was sleeping. They had a pair of trimmers, and they decided they were going to hold me down and cut my hair. It didn’t happen. I had a knife, and I made some threats. It didn’t make me any friends, but I believe what I believe.”

With the Bears, Anderson once again stood his ground. Jelly, cream, chocolate sprinkled—didn’t matter. Neal Anderson would fetch no man a doughnut. “Even for Walter,” he said. “I’m a stubborn person, and it’s not my job to get you your morning sweet. It’s my job to play football.”

Throughout the season stories were written about the old Bear taking the new Bear under his wing; about Walter and Neal forming a potent one-two duo for a team that thrived upon running the ball. The whole bosom buddies narrative was fictionalized. “I don’t think Neal ever bought into Walter,” said Jay Hilgenberg, the veteran center. “He wanted to be his own guy.” Payton eyed Anderson wearily, like a lion guarding his food. Anderson mostly stayed out of his way. “I can’t say Walter embraced me, but he wasn’t mean to me, either,” Anderson said. “For a while the running backs didn’t accept me, but over time it got better. Walter was friendly enough.

“I didn’t come to Chicago to back Walter up and learn from him, as some thought I should have. No, I came to Chicago to play. To play tailback. That was my attitude. I think other people were more willing to learn from him and eventually hope to take over. That wasn’t me.”

Now thirty-three years old, with 14,860 career rushing yards, the assumption around the league was that the Bears would lessen Payton’s load while gradually shifting the focus toward Anderson. Even Ditka, Payton’s biggest supporter, said he wanted to “not get him beat up” with excessive usage. “I’m going to put him into situations probably a little differently than a year ago when I would have used him as a lead blocker,” he said. “I don’t think that’s what I want him doing.” Payton bristled at the suggestion.

Unlike Anderson, whose absence was generally ignored by teammates, Payton reported to training camp in Platteville, Wisconsin, with a bang—landing alongside one of the practice fields in a helicopter piloted by Gordon Ward of Chicago’s Omni Flight. Payton paid eight hundred dollars for the one-hour, twenty-minute ride, and deemed the flight worth every cent. “Best entrance I’ve ever seen,” said Henry Jackson, a rookie free agent linebacker. “It declared his importance.” Payton further announced his presence (and status) by residing not in one of the drab dormitory rooms, but in the souped-up RV he parked adjacent to the facility. Equipped with a television, a kitchen, and all the frozen meat one could ever want, Payton’s living unit was a camp hotspot. Technically, it was only supposed to serve as a place for Payton to relax. Factually, he lived there, and a ball boy was assigned to wake him each morning. “It was just like the trailer Clark Griswold had in
Vacation
,” said Mike Tomczak, a backup quarterback. “Why sit in a dorm when you can bring five people into a mobile home and hang out and relax?”

If the 1985 season served as a confirmation of Payton’s stature, 1986 was a final reminder. The Bears were, once again, great, going 14-2 and winning a third straight division title. But just as the brilliance of a classic movie cannot be recaptured in a sequel, an all-time legendary football team rarely lasts beyond one season.

Taken in and of themselves, Payton’s numbers (1,333 rushing yards, eight touchdowns) alone told a dominant story, but the ’86 Bears were a faded copy of the ’85 edition. From the commercialism (McMahon plugged Taco Bell; Payton hawked Kentucky Fried Chicken; Gault endorsed his own clothing line; Perry promoted, well, everything) to the literary deals (Singletary, McMahon, and Ditka wrote books) to the increased club hopping and alcohol guzzling, Chicago lost its edge. The team was hungry, but not famished; angry, but not ferocious. Talk of a dynasty filled the newspapers and airwaves. Dynasties, though, start with a base level of unselfishness. “Everybody got greedy,” said Fred Caito, the veteran trainer. “The players, the coach—everybody. It was a snowball rolling down a very steep hill. The money, the fame, the egos. It ate our team alive.”

Buddy Ryan, the feisty defensive coordinator, departed to become head coach of the Philadelphia Eagles, and with him left the blood-thirst of the NFL’s most dangerous defense. His replacement, Vince Tobin, was—in a stark departure from the cantankerous Ryan—a warm man who had served capably as the defensive coordinator of the USFL’s Philadelphia/Baltimore Stars. With the Bears he immediately dismantled much of Ryan’s 46 Defense, implementing the 4-3 alignment he knew and loved. “I told the guys that it wasn’t me who took off, it was Buddy,” said Tobin. “They could either work with me or decide not to and pull the team apart.” Technically, Tobin succeeded—the ’86 Bears again ranked first in the NFL in total defense, and allowed fewer passing yards and fewer yards per carry while posting only two fewer sacks than a year earlier. The defense even set an NFL record for fewest points allowed. Yet statistics fail to tell the whole story. Opposing quarterbacks who once quivered at the sight of Mike Singletary or Wilber Marshall no longer had fear in their eyes. Opposing running backs stopped bracing for hits seconds before impact. The unit’s unpredictability was replaced with order. “Vince always comes out and says the defense was better under him, but it’s just not true,” said Jay Hilgenberg. “It was the attitude of our defense as an attacking defense that I think we lost. Buddy really brought that out. We weren’t as terrifying. Those were mean guys, but they got a little more gentle.”

Along with defensive coordinator, the other spot that damned the ’86 Bears was quarterback. McMahon started four of Chicago’s first six games, but his body was halfway to the morgue. He could barely move his right shoulder. “My arm was coming out of the socket,” he said. “It was from an injury I first had in high school. I kept telling the doctor what was wrong. He said, ‘That can’t be happening. Do you know how painful that is?’ I said, ‘Yeah, I know. Happens every day.’ ” McMahon sat out the seventh game, which the Steve Fuller–led Bears lost at Minnesota, 23–7. At a team meeting the next day, Dan Hampton, the veteran defensive lineman, lit into McMahon. “I liked Jim and I still like Jim,” Hampton said. “I think the combination of a lackadaisical approach to the game, the lackadaisical approach to being ready as a team, all those little things contributed.”