Sweetness

by Jeff Pearlman

  When the evening finally came to an end, an exhausted Walter Payton went to bed.

  He didn’t sleep a wink.

  CHAPTER 14

  THE STRANGEST RUN

  HIS WORDS POSSESSED MEANING.

  That’s one of the intriguing parts of young Walter Payton. He talked quietly and infrequently enough for members of the Chicago media to often wonder whether the twenty-four-year-old ever spoke at all. Hence, when Payton opened his mouth and made a bold declaration, the sentiment wasn’t to be taken lightly.

  That’s why, as occupants of the Bears administrative offices stared down the front sports page of the November 1, 1977, Chicago Tribune, their jaws dropped.

  PAYTON’S GOAL: QUIT IN 1 PIECE

  By Ed Stone

  Walter Payton is concerned enough about the long-range physical toll on him that he plans to retire from pro football after three more seasons.... “There’s just so much torment and brutality you can send your body through,” he explained. “I want to get out of pro football with all of the physical ability I came in with.”

  Dating back to his early high school games, Payton refused to grant defenders the pleasure of bearing witness to his pain. Immediately after being hit, he jumped to his feet, patted the opposing player on the rear, and sprinted back toward the huddle. “I hated that,” said Jeff Siemon, the Vikings’ four-time Pro Bowl linebacker. “You’d stick him with a great shot, feel amazing about yourself . . . and then here’s Walter, smiling and congratulating you.”

  Those who paid close attention to the Bears over Payton’s first two seasons, however, knew the running back was taking a hellacious pounding. His arms and legs were often blue-and-purple canvases. His calves throbbed. “The yards he gained were all because of his talent,” said Wally Chambers, Chicago’s standout defensive lineman. “The line in front of him was never very good, so he had to make people miss. When he didn’t, he got hit. Hard.” Because of his spectacular 1976 campaign, which resulted in him being named The Sporting News’ NFC Player of the Year, fans increasingly compared Payton with O. J. Simpson, his new rival. Yet there was a glaring difference: While Simpson ran behind an elite offensive line (right guard Joe DeLamielleure was a future Hall of Famer, left guard Reggie McKenzie an all-AFC selection), Payton’s blockers were thoroughly mediocre. When asked, Payton spoke on behalf of their abilities, declaring guards Noah Jackson and Revie Sorey to be “Pro Bowl worthy” and capping touchdowns by allowing his linemen to handle the celebratory end zone spike. To confidants, however, Payton complained his bodyguards missed as often as they hit. “Walter never robbed anyone of his dignity,” said Tom Hicks, a Chicago linebacker. “If guys blew blocks, he never threw the ball down or screamed or chewed someone out. Never. And he definitely could have.”

  Payton’s Mondays, Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays—an excruciating stretch during which he could barely move his arms and legs—were indictments of an offensive line that suffered through lengthy stretches of indifference and laziness. That the linemen received any notoriety at all was a testament to Payton’s ability to make them appear competent. “Noah didn’t have the mental stability to be great,” said Mark Nordquist, a former Bears lineman. “And Revie had all the size and the speed, but no work ethic at all. He nicknamed himself Rock Hollywood and thought he was super. He wasn’t.” The days also spoke to the power of painkillers—which were used throughout the league. Payton robotically popped Darvons which, supplied by the team in sizeable locker-room buckets, were unhealthy, undocumented, and—from Payton’s standpoint—indispensable. “I’d see him walk out of the locker room with jars of painkillers,” said Bud Holmes, his agent. “And he’d eat them like they were a snack.” During games, Payton approached the sideline and nodded toward Fred Caito, the team’s trainer. There was no confusion over the intent. “If he got dinked on the field he’d go up to Freddie and say, ‘Freddie, I need a Darvon,’ ” said Clyde Emrich, the Bears’ former strength coach. “So Freddie would put one in Walter’s hand and they’d keep walking by each other. Walter would take it without stopping. He didn’t want people to know, because he knew if they knew he was hurt they’d go after him hard.”

  “Fred would have a handful of painkillers for Walter, and Walter would just pop them,” said Don Pierson, the longtime Tribune beat writer. “He took so many pills. Fred would stand there, hand them to Walter, and Walter would eat them like mints.”

  When the medication alone didn’t ease the pain, Payton lathered his arms and legs with dimethyl sulfoxide (DMSO), a mysterious nontoxic organic solvent used to treat horses. Though at the time few knew whether DMSO was healthy or harmful (more than thirty years later, the jury is still out), to Payton it felt like Ben-Gay, times a million. “It made your breath smell like garlic and your body just stink,” said John Skibinski, who joined the Bears as a fullback in 1978. “But if you had a bruise, more times than not it made it disappear.”

  While the daily suffering was hardly embraced by Payton, it wasn’t the reason he was considering an early retirement. No, that idea first entered his mind on a dark Chicago night in October, when an opposing player with crazed eyes and a rabid pit bull’s sensibilities went on the attack.

  Until that point, 1977 was shaping up to be the greatest year of Walter’s young life. In March he met one of his heroes, Muhammad Ali, at a banquet, a moment that left him floating like a butterfly. Five months later, in another unforgettable encounter, the Bears played an exhibition game against the Cleveland Browns, whose kick returner and backup halfback was a five-foot-eight, 175-pound gnat from Jackson State named Eddie Payton. The older Payton brother had spent some time in the Canadian Football League, and was finally getting a shot to stick in the NFL. Walter outgained Eddie, thirty-four yards to twenty-one yards, hugged his sibling afterward, then noted to reporters, “I told you he was faster than me. Not better, but faster.”

  Best of all, for the first time in three years Jack Pardee seemed committed to a high-powered offense. During the off-season the team hired Sid Gillman, the revolutionary passing guru and former head coach of the San Diego Chargers, to liven things up as Chicago’s offensive coordinator. No longer, it seemed, would the Bears run 80 percent of the time, or only line up two receivers and a tight end. Gillman promised four-wideout sets and Payton going deep along the sideline; wild slants and imaginative bombs. “He had a brilliant mind,” said receiver Brian Baschnagel. “The football field was Sid’s playground.”

  Though the Bears opened the season by losing two of their first three games, Pardee projected little panic. Payton had run well, but the overall adjustment to Gillman’s ideas was awkward. “It takes time,” Pardee said. “We’ll get it right.” On October 10, the 2-1 Los Angeles Rams came to Chicago. Playing quarterback was Joe Namath, now thirty-four years old and in his first season out of New York. The Rams had naïvely signed Broadway Joe as a free agent, hoping he could replicate the magic of his earlier days with the Jets. Namath, though, was a Xerox of his old self; painfully immobile and standing on a pair of knees held together by chewing gum and Scotch Tape. In planning for the game, Pardee and Brad Ecklund, Chicago’s defensive line coach, drew up a strategy centered upon turning Namath into a piñata. The Bears were to hit Namath hard, often, and if need be, late.

  In a game noteworthy for its sheer brutality, Chicago assaulted Namath, who—on those rare occasions he was able to cleanly get rid of the ball—watched his passes flutter pathetically into a driving rain and fierce wind. In the fourth quarter Waymond Bryant, the Chicago linebacker, was ejected after he knocked Namath out with an illegal tackle, thrusting the top of his helmet into Namath’s Adam’s apple. “The hit by Bryant was a cheap shot,” said Dennis Harrah, the Rams’ guard. “I didn’t see it very well. But I knew it. I could feel it.”

  Having played in the SWAC, where coaches fought coaches and bounties were placed upon the heads of superstars, Payton was generally unflustered by the nastiness of professional football. Oftentimes, in fact, he embr
aced it. Early in the first quarter, while running a sweep, Payton was yanked out of bounds by Bill Simpson, a Rams defensive back who grabbed hold of his face mask and refused to let go. Payton, being Payton, popped up, said nothing, and jogged back to the huddle. Later on, following a third-quarter sweep by Roland Harper, Payton approached Simpson from behind and clipped him in the left knee with his shoulder pad. The hit was dirty, though Payton’s intent was merely to send a message, not actually hurt someone. “Walter,” Simpson said, “what the hell are you doing?”

  Payton shrugged off the question—what comes around goes around. But then the screaming began. And the threats. “I’m gonna fucking kill you, Payton! You’re a motherfucking dead man! Watch your back, motherfucker! Watch your back!”

  The words emerged from the lips of one Isiah Robertson, Los Angeles’ twenty-eight-year-old right outside linebacker. A 1971 first-round draft pick out of the SWAC’s Southern University, Robertson wasted little time establishing himself as one of the league’s best players, earning All-Pro honors as a rookie and being named the NFC Rookie of the Year. He was fast and ferocious, yet as the seasons passed, coaches and teammates began to question his stability. “Isiah was a very good player, but he was a pain in the ass,” said Bob Pifferini, a Rams linebacker. “I can’t think of too many nice things to say about him—he was so selfish, it was painful. He was our teammate, but if he and Walter came to blows, 99 percent of us would have rooted for Walter.”

  Robertson said he and Payton were friends dating back to college, which is unlikely, considering Payton was a senior at Columbia High when Robertson was a senior at Southern. He said he loved and respected Payton, and that the entire “motherfucking dead man” episode that night was blown out of proportion. The facts speak differently. Following the game, the Tribune’s Cooper Rollow approached Robertson’s locker. He was quickly rewarded. “Wally Chambers is the poorest excuse for an All-Pro I ever saw,” Robertson said. “If we ever meet again I intend to see that he gets his. The same thing goes for Walter Payton. He clipped Bill Simpson on one play. There was no excuse for it. If I ever get a chance I’m gonna end his career.”6

  For the first time anyone could remember, Payton was shaken beyond quick repair. He returned to the locker room after the game and paced back and forth, tears welling in both eyes. Here was the immature Mississippi kid struggling to deal with the reality of NFL brutality. He refused to speak to the press, dressed without showering, and left the stadium. He later confided in Harper that, were this the way professional football worked, he could do without. Cheap hits were one thing. Threatening an opponent’s life was another. “This isn’t for me,” he said. “I don’t play football to hurt people.”

  The following April, Robertson ran into Payton at the Grand Prix of Long Beach. When he extended his hand for a conciliatory shake, Payton turned away. “When I saw that response, I thought ‘Is it my breath? Did I date your sister?’ ” Robertson said. “I yelled at him, ‘If you’re still upset over the fight your team caused, we’ll have another fight right here.’ It was bullshit.”

  Payton walked off, leaving Robertson in his dust.

  As long as there are football fans in Chicago, there will be debates involving Walter Payton. Was he better than Jim Brown and Gale Sayers? Which was his best season? Can the Bears even possibly win without him?

  The answer to one pressing question, however, has long been resolved. Namely, what was the most incredible run of Payton’s career?

  It came on November 13, 1977. Leading up to the game the Bears were, once again, floundering. Stubborn to a fault, Pardee tuned Gillman out, reverting to the predictable run-run-run philosophy that resulted in few points and a bored-to-death fan base. “If you were a receiver you were either a right receiver or a left receiver,” said Baschnagel. “The only time you’d venture to the other side of the field was if you were in the slot. It was very, very archaic, and then they brought in Sid Gillman—and nothing changed.”

  “Shit, we’d watch film of Chicago’s offense and laugh,” said Dave Roller, a defensive tackle with the Packers. “It was junior high–level crap.”

  With the exception of Payton, whose 937 rushing yards through eight weeks led the NFL, little was going right. The Bears were coming off a 47–0 loss at Houston that Pardee called, “the worst thing I’ve ever been associated with in any form.” The team’s record dropped to 3-5.

  Next up was a matchup with the Chiefs at Soldier Field. With two wins in its first eight games, Kansas City had stamped itself as a hapless ball club in the midst of a downward spiral. Throughout the early 1970s, the Chiefs were the pride of the AFC, a model organization built upon deep drafts and canny transactions. Unfortunately, like many franchises that enjoyed sustained success, Kansas City couldn’t let go. With three thirty-two-year-old linebackers (Billy Andrews, Willie Lanier, and Jim Lynch), as well as thirty-four-year-old Emmitt Thomas at cornerback, its defense doubled as a home for aged, broken-down ballplayers. “We were hurting,” said Andrews. “We couldn’t stop anyone.” Four opposing backs had already cleared a hundred yards, including Cleveland’s Greg Pruitt’s 153 two weeks earlier, and the word was out: Pound the Chiefs, they’ll inevitably break.

  With this in mind, quarterback Bob Avellini handed off to Payton again and again (by the end of the game Payton would carry a season-high thirty-three times). The runs were almost exclusively straight into the line, and while the Chiefs jumped out to a 17–0 halftime lead, Chicago’s offensive players sensed the Kansas City defense wearing down. “We’re going to keep running right at them,” Pardee told his players at halftime. “They’re about to break.”

  To start the second half, Chicago’s offensive linemen held hands in the huddle, a symbolic gesture of unity for an occasionally fractured group. Though it went unreported in the press, Payton’s blockers were hardly the tightest of friends. Noah Jackson, the 273-pound left guard known as “Buddha” for his sizeable gut, was regarded by teammates as lazy and selfish. For his part, Jackson thought left tackle Ted Albrecht, his neighbor on the line, had no business starting in the NFL. General contempt was also directed toward Revie Sorey, the right guard whose cockiness rarely matched his play. “Were we all having beers together?” said Dan Peiffer, a center. “Not often. But does that matter? Probably not.”

  Beginning in the second half against the Chiefs, however, the unit inexplicably clicked. Payton was running hard, and the linemen were blocking even harder. Jackson pancaked Lanier on a brutal Payton sweep, then Sorey drove Lynch into the ground with equal force.

  And then came the greatest run of Payton’s career.

  Early in the third quarter, with the Bears still down by seventeen, Payton grabbed the ball from Avellini and swept right, where he was immediately met by Lanier and cornerback Tim Gray. Trapped, Payton spun around and retraced his steps back toward the middle of the field. The first to miss was Tom Howard, a rookie linebacker who grazed Payton with his right arm as the running back paused, skipped, then zoomed by. (“The idea of tackling Walter with one arm is crazy,” said Avellini. “Couldn’t be done.”) Two Chiefs, Lynch and defensive end Whitney Paul, converged on Payton, who appeared momentarily trapped. His white shoes and blue jersey a blur, Payton turned upfield, extending away from the grasps of Lynch and Paul and into the waiting arms of Thomas. A future Hall of Famer who would retire with fifty-eight interceptions and a sterling reputation, Thomas did everything right. He squared his body, bent his knees, reached with both arms, and—BOOM! Payton trampled over him. “I threw two blocks on that play,” said Robin Earl, the Bears’ rookie fullback. “That’s how long that play went on. I cut the defensive tackle and then I got up, saw Walter dancing around, and jumped on someone else’s back.”

  Next up for Payton was Gary Barbaro, a second-year free safety. Like Thomas, Barbaro approached the situation perfectly. Empowered by a running start, he lowered his head and slammed into Payton. “Man, I exploded into him,” said Barbaro, known throughout the NFL as a dan
gerous hitter. “I thought I knocked him off his feet, I hit him so hard. But I didn’t wrap him up.” Payton plowed into Barbaro and the safety dropped like a sack of bricks. “He actually stepped on me as he continued on,” Barbaro said. “That’s domination.” Though he was momentarily slowed from nearly tripping over Barbaro’s prone body, Payton outran Howard, who somehow returned to the play, and defensive tackle Willie Lee. By the time Payton was finally brought down, he had broken seven tackles and gained eighteen miraculous yards. A better run has never been caught on tape.

  “If you look at the video I’m within three or four feet of him four times,” said John Lohmeyer, a Chiefs defensive tackle. “I didn’t give up, because it was well known that you couldn’t get him down with ease, and he was an escape artist. I tried tackling him—we all did. But when I got near him, he’d already changed his mind and gone another direction.”

  Payton went on to score moments later, and added two more touchdowns while running for 192 yards in the Bears’ 28–27 triumph.

  Watching the highlights from his home in Los Angeles was Jim Brown, the NFL’s all-time rushing king. Now forty-one years old and retired for twelve years, Brown had largely divorced himself from the sport. He tuned in sporadically, and only knew the names of a handful of players—Walter Payton not being one of them. “It was the first time I saw him,” recalled Brown. “And I didn’t know who he was and I saw him make this run. He fought for every inch. He must have twisted and knocked three or four guys over. Spun around, accelerated. And I said, ‘Oh, my goodness—what kind of animal is this?’ ”

  Seven days later, the Bears were scheduled to host the Minnesota Vikings at Soldier Field. Throughout the 1970s, the Vikings had dominated Chicago, beating them eight out of their last nine meetings while owning the rugged NFC Central. They were everything the Bears were not: balanced, well coached, disciplined, talented. Even without the services of Fran Tarkenton, their injured quarterback, the Minnesota offense was explosive, with the punishing running of halfback Chuck Foreman and a pair of dangerous receivers, Ahmad Rashad and Sammy White. Their defense, the famed Purple People Eaters, was stacked. “We weren’t in Minnesota’s class,” said receiver Brian Baschnagel. “But we wanted to be.”