We ask, they answer

The 1985 Chicago Bears

By Trent Modglin

There aren’t many sports teams that stand the test of time quite like the 1985 Chicago Bears. Very few. Maybe none.
Between all the colorful personalities, the dominant defense, the near perfection and the fact Chicago, a true football town, was desperate for a winner at the time, it’s not hard to realize why that team remains so close to the heart of the city 20 years later.

You could make a case for the ’85 Bears being the most popular team in the history of sports. It was a circus affair, really, keeping track of that team. People who didn’t watch football tuned it to watch the Bears just to see what they’d do next. They changed the way defense was played. They took the idea of sports marketing to a new level. And did I mention they won Super Bowl XX, in a memorable 46-10 rout of the Patriots in New Orleans? Can’t forget that.
I recently visited with four key components of that famous team — Dan Hampton, Dave Duerson, Jim Covert and Otis Wilson — to discuss a variety of topics, including the intimidation tactics of the defense, Mike Ditka’s famous temper, Walter Payton’s love of firecrackers and the bad dancing in “The Super Bowl Shuffle.”

Hall of Fame defensive lineman
Dan Hampton

Q: Can you describe the bond that ’85 team had?
Hampton: I think a lot of it has to do with the fact that people who appreciate things are people who had to do without. Paris Hilton would not appreciate you loaning her your car, because she would expect a Mercedes or a Porsche. But somebody that’s been riding the bus for five years, you loan them your car they’re going to think that’s fantastic.

Well, our team had been through the dregs of the NFL for 20 years. I was playing on the team back when people were throwing beer at us and cussing us out. Then, when everybody starts seeing that this team is turning it around, a couple of things start happening. You start tasting success and redoubling your efforts, saying, ‘Hey, I like this so I’m going to push harder.’ The other thing is, after 10 or 15 years of getting kicked around, every dog has their day and you can either fragment and point fingers at each other or you can join ranks, solidarity ensues and you start taking the us-against-them mentality. ... We had played on teams that weren’t appreciated and weren’t good, and we knew it. But we all had the underlying resolve to keep fighting and working hard and say, ‘What about us? Why can’t we be like the Raiders, why can’t we be like Dallas and go to the Super Bowl?’

Q: Are you still surprised at what it meant to the city?
Hampton: It has been so rewarding that it was so well received. Obviously, the Super Bowl was played by the game’s elite for 20 years before we earned our way to it. So it wasn’t like it was our third one, and it was ho-hum. I think that had a lot to do with it, that it was a long, almost numbing period of time to get there.

The second thing was that it was a team that dominated in all facets. If you look at the undefeated (1972) Dolphins team that everybody talks about, there were some games where they scraped by and barely won. ... But that Bears team, it was kind of almost like a runaway train. And that in itself endeared us to a lot of fans. I think a lot more fans were made after the Super Bowl than before it. Just like the White Sox fans this year. There was a lot more interest in the White Sox two days after they won than two days before. And for whatever reason, in this busy world we live in, everybody doesn’t have the time to sit down and feel the pulse and see it coming. After it hits the fan, then everybody’s aware of it.

We were the first team to ever have a soundtrack, and we had the characters. Walter Payton was a beloved figure. The Fridge was a cartoon character come to life. Just a ferocious defense. The punky QB. It just had all these little facets to it that no other team had.

Who won the Super Bowl last year? What about five years ago? ... You have to think for a second. But everyone knows what happened that year because there was such an identified persona with it.

Q: Looking back, does it seem like it really was a once-in-a-lifetime situation?
Hampton: The fact we did it that one time almost makes that team more special. If you think about it, the next year we didn’t have Buddy Ryan, the cast changed a little bit, McMahon wasn’t healthy. In a way, rather than a long, sustained deal like the Steelers, 49ers, Cowboys or Patriots did, on one side of my head I think that’s fantastic to be dominant that long. Even though we won more games in five years than any team in history, we only won one Super Bowl. But that one has been and always will be the exclamation point on the franchise.

Q: What was the deal with Mike Ditka and Buddy Ryan not getting along?
Hampton: It’s never happened before, and it’ll never happen again. The owner, Mr. Halas, hired Buddy before he hired Ditka. So Buddy was eight-foot tall and bulletproof, and Ditka couldn’t touch him. And Buddy didn’t mind letting everybody know that, so that in itself fostered a poor relationship with Ditka. Buddy had built these relationships with Walter (Payton) and myself and (Gary) Fencik and all these guys before Ditka got there, and there was nothing Ditka could do to change that dynamic. And so, even three, four years into it, at the Super Bowl, it was still a relationship where Ditka was basically on the outside looking in.

All in all, it didn’t hurt anybody, it didn’t cost us anything. ... A head coach wants to care only about wins, whereas Buddy was only concerned about defense. He wanted to do different things on defense and had a little different agenda than Ditka, and it all came to blowing up in Miami. Buddy was sticking with the game plan (against the Dolphins), was too hard-headed and didn’t want to admit he made a mistake. But in a way, it was a dynamic that inspired us as a defense because we wanted to have Buddy’s back, and we never wanted him to be put up on a ringer.

Q: You guys had a level of intimidation with that defense. When you’d stare at the other team during warm-ups, did you feel like you had an immediate edge?
Hampton: That’s the one thing about this league, it doesn’t take long to figure out who the bad asses are. Because you watch them on film every day, and you know who they are. So when they’re standing down at the other end of the field, running around and all that, you’re not thinking about it. But when they’re standing there at the 49-and-a-half yard line, staring at you while you’re running your plays, it gets in the back of your head whether it’s for an extra 10 minutes, 45 minutes, whatever. That was something we started doing, and there’s a reason why that defense that set nine different players to the Pro Bowl had respect. It’s because people watched us on film and said, ‘Holy shit they can play.’ It was just another one of the many sidebars to that team.

•••

Linebacker
Otis Wilson

Q: There seemed to be a close-knit bond with ’85 team, something you don’t see as much of today in the NFL.
Wilson: To have that kind of success, you develop a great relationship. Twenty years later, to this day, we still hang out and still enjoy one another and appreciate one another. We had crazy guys on the offense, crazy guys on the defense. Everybody just had fun and appreciated each other’s talents. We got along well together. It was a good mix.

Q: Can you describe what that Super Bowl season meant to the city?
Wilson: No doubt about it, this is a football city. You look at MJ winning six titles, the Sox winning the Series this year, and yet with the Bears 10-4 (at the time of the interview), there’s already so much buzz about the team. Twenty years later, they’re still talking about us. The city embraced us, and with the personalities we had and the fact we were so rooted in the communities, to this day we could walk around the street and they act as though we still play for the team. That’s the kind of love that they had for that team.

Q: What is it like still earning respect around the city?
Wilson: It opens a lot of doors, and a lot of people come up to you and express their appreciation and relate it to what they were doing around that time. Women, old and young, come up to you and say, ‘I never was really into football, but I still watched you guys.’ Folks truly enjoyed what we did, they respected us and it was a great time in their lives. When we were on TV, there wasn’t anybody in the streets. They were watching the Bears and what our defense did. It’s just a great testament to the guys and what we did and how committed we were. And to this day, they still show their appreciation.

I can go to any restaurant anywhere in Chicago and not have a problem. Really, it’s around the country. Anywhere I go, whether I’m on vacation or whatever, someone will know ‘Hey, you’re a Chicago Bear, you were part of that great team,’ so it’s cool that they appreciate it wherever we go.

Q: I’ve heard some good stories about Buddy Ryan’s motivation tactics as defensive coordinator. Care to indulge a bit?
Wilson: Buddy was the kind of person that yes, he would voice his opinion, but he was always fair. He would always say, ‘If you don’t know what you’re doing, you’re going to be standing over here next to me. And pretty soon, you’ll be bagging groceries because you’re not going to be around here.’

He would never call you by your name. He would say, ‘No. 55, did you know Kellen Winslow’s the greatest tight end in the world, and he’s going to eat for you lunch.’ He told me one day that CBS was doing a special on the defense and highlighting me all day with all these cameras, so make sure I don’t embarrass myself. Like a fool, I went and taped the game and watched it later. Buddy was into all kinds of stuff. In the press, he would tell you that Fridge, he was a wasted draft choice. Mike Singletary, a sub-par athlete.

I mean, c’mon, you’ve got a Hall of Famer for 13 years, how could that be a wasted athlete? But that was just his way of seeing if you could step up to the plate. With a great system and a great individual, once you get into his fold, he’ll embrace you. All his players would die for him.

Q: Any good defense these days automatically gets compared to you guys. Does it feel pretty good being a model for comparison?
Wilson: It feels great. Even this (Bears) team today, they’re trying to compare them to us. When the Ravens won, they did the same thing. Anybody that has success, they compare their defense to ours defense. But the one thing you can’t compare is how we intimidated people. We were dominant in what he did. We literally went out there and beat the hell out of people. In every way fashionable.

These other teams, there wasn’t anybody scared of them. ... But when you talk about our defense, we came out there and those quarterbacks were worried about what we were doing as opposed to what they were doing. That’s the difference.

Q: Can you even begin to tell any stories about the group of characters?
Wilson: We just had fun. I remember the fire alarms going off at like 3 in the morning, with Walter (Payton) shootin’ firecrackers off in the dorm and the bells and sirens going off at training camp. You want to kill his ass because he’s out in his motor home sleeping like a baby while we’ve got to go through all that. (Jay) Hilgenberg and (Kurt) Becker and (Jim) McMahon going out and acting crazy. We were personalities, doing all kinds of stuff. It was crazy, and the fans just got accustomed to it. … That’s an earmark for disaster, but we played well together.

Q: Tell me the truth, there was no better place for a team like that to win the Super Bowl than New Orleans, was there?
Wilson: Ooohh, Lord have mercy. That was crazy. We went down to Champaign (Ill.) for practice the week before New Orleans, and we had a hell of a time there too. (In New Orleans), the bars weren’t locked, and we just had a good time. But we knew when to hold it and we knew when to fold it. We knew when to focus, and we still got our job done.

Q: Time to call someone out. Who was the worst dancer in the Super Bowl Shuffle?
Wilson: “All of us. Couldn’t none of us dance. Walter (Payton) was on Soul Train the one time, and Willie (Gault) is Hollywood, so I guess you can give them a little credit. (Gary) Fencik and Steve Fuller we bad. Steve knows. He knows he was bad. He had a cast on his foot, so he was sticking that one leg out there, but it wasn’t doing much.

•••

Offensive tackle
Jim Covert

Q: Why is the 1985 season never far from people’s minds?
Covert: What did we have, nine, 10 Pro Bowlers on that team? I mean, legitimate all-stars. ... You can make an argument that on defense, out of 11 spots, you had eight or nine impact players. On offense, you could probably make an argument that you had six or seven impact players. I’m talking about first-round draft pick caliber players who would be the ‘A’ players on any team. I don’t see that now.

Q: Do you ever feel like you could be 70 years old and never need reservations for dinner in this town?
Covert: This is how far reaching it is. A couple years ago in Los Angeles, I was at this famous bar out there called the Sky Bar. It’s in one of the hotels, I can’t remember which one, overlooking downtown L.A. and Beverly Hills. If you stayed at the hotel, you could get up to the Sky Bar. But we didn’t stay there. We ate at the restaurant, and I had customers there with me and everything. And so when we were done, they all wanted to go up to the Sky Bar, and there was this long line to get in. And if you weren’t from the hotel, you had to wait, and we were way in the back. A customer friend of mine is up there talking to the guy at the door, and I can see him pointing back at me. We’re in Los Angeles, this kid bouncer looks like he’s 25 years old, maybe, and has no clue (who I am), you know?

Then he motions me to come up and says, ‘You guys are in.’ He goes, ‘I’m from Chicago and I had your poster on my wall when I was seven years old. You guys are golden.’

My customers were so impressed after that. That’s how far reaching it is. That team was and still is so popular.

Q: And you guys had quite the cluster of personalities.
Covert: Well, it’s the same kind of personalities we had when I got there in ’83, and we didn’t win, so no one knew who they were (laughs). I knew they were different guys with what they brought to the table, but there was a lot of respect there. When you brought it on Sunday, stepped up your play and were a contributor, you had that respect. People talk about how great that ’85 defense was. Of course it was legendary and people rank it as one of the best defenses of all time. But as an offense, we led the league in rushing, time of possession, first downs and were second in scoring. That makes your defense pretty good.

Q: From an offensive point of view, tell me about the dynamic of Buddy Ryan vs. Mike Ditka.
Covert: Buddy was very well respected by the offensive players, but I don’t think he really respected a lot of the offensive guys. He knew the good ones’ names, but that was it. His focus was defense. And we offensive guys respected him a lot because he was a winner and his guys loved him, and it showed to them that he really cared about them as well.

When Mike came in, it showed what kind of man Mike Ditka is because when you think about it, he had to get along with that. I mean, this wasn’t his guy. ... But Mike said, ‘Hey, I can work with him as long as he can work with me,’ and I think that shows what can of a man he is. He didn’t need it to be perfect. He just wanted to work with somebody and build a winner, and that’s what they did. So I give a lot of credit to Mike, because he had to put up with a lot of crap as well to make this thing successful. Think about it, he had to manage all the egos that we had, and not only himself, but his defensive coordinator and coaching staff. It was difficult.

Q: What was it like blocking for Walter?
Covert: First of all, I think he’s the greatest football player who ever played. And I’m talking football player, not running back. I mean, he did everything. There are some running backs that couldn’t block their grandmother. But he could really block and could throw the football as far as anyone on the field. He could do anything. He was just amazing.

Q: What about his pranks?
Covert: He had the annual fire alarm in training camp. He was the worst. The annual fire alarm in Platteville was a killer. You never knew when it was going to be, but it was always toward the end of camp, when guys really wanted to get out of there. And it ended up being at like 3:00 in the morning, and guys just started staying in bed and putting their pillows over their heads (laughs). You knew it was coming.

In the old Halas Hall, all the rookies used to stay down in the “dungeon.” That was the rookie locker room. We would all sleep on the floor sometimes between practices because it was nice and cool down there. There was a backdoor and a stairwell leading down there, and he would open up the backdoor and throw an M-80 down there right in the middle of when we were sleeping. … He’d goose the referees, he’d goose anybody. He was an awesome guy. I miss him every day. He was so fun to be around. Matt Suhey and I were roommates, and he and Matt were very close, so he was always in our room. Now they all have single rooms, but the only one with a single room back then was Walter. But he always had his right next to ours, and he was always over with us.

Q: New Orleans seemed like a perfect fit for the Super Bowl, but Otis Wilson tells me you guys were obeying curfew after Wednesday.
Covert: Oh, I don’t know about that. I know we were out on Thursday because that was the weekly Thursday night offensive line dinner. And I think we went out on Friday too. I know Wednesday and Thursday were brutal because we had a big practice on Thursday, and I had a hangover bad. I remember that. (With our families not coming down until Thursday or Friday) it was a good way for us to spend time together. We were at Pat O’Brien’s, we went to all the restaurants. The first night we had a big blowout, and Mark Bortz and I were out wandering around the French Quarter at like 4 in the morning. We had the media day the next day, and we were all hung over. It was brutal. A lot of fun though.

Q: Does it seem like it’s flown by?
Covert: Yeah, I can’t believe it. Twenty years goes by fast. When the 10 year anniversary came up, I was like, ‘My goodness.’ You see now, it shows what kind of guys they were, what kind of individuals there were because a lot of guys have been successful outside of football, a lot of guys have been successful staying in football. It just shows you the character of a lot of the guys you played with.

Q: Do you have a favorite memory?
Covert: When Mike Ditka came in the first meeting and said, ‘We’re going to win the Super Bowl. And a lot of you guys who don’t want to pay the price and are just sticking around to get a paycheck aren’t going to be here.’ He asked why can’t we win and said we need to do this and this and this. And then he said, ‘And when we win the Super Bowl, I can guarantee a lot of you guys in this room aren’t going to be there.’ And I remember us getting down on a knee, holding hands and saying the Lord’s prayer after the Super Bowl, like we did after every game, and I looked around and he was right. There wasn’t a lot of the same guys there. But it was such hard work to get there, that for the guys who there originally, it was great to see.

It just showed that you can do it if you believe in your coaches, believe in your abilities and believe that good things happen to teams that work hard and believe they can win. He wasn’t going to let us be satisfied with being second-best. The Bears were second-best for too long.

Q: How did you guys react after losing the bid for the perfect season to Miami that year?
Covert: I really believe this, and I always tell people that the best thing that ever happened to us was getting beat, because we didn’t feel like we could get beat. Think about all those scores we ran off. We were just kicking the crap out of people, and then we got beat. How would you like to go 16-0 and then get beat in the first round of the playoffs? I wouldn’t want to do that. It was all about the Super Bowl. We wanted to go undefeated, but when we didn’t, it didn’t hurt our feelings. We just got back to work.

Q: How come we didn’t see you in the Super Bowl Shuffle?
Covert: The offensive line, we kind of made a pact not to do it. I think (Steve) McMichael and (Dan) Hampton did the same thing. I didn’t like it. I thought it was… . But now my kids are all like, ‘Dad, why weren’t you in the Super Bowl Shuffle?’ Now it’s like a cult thing.

Q: Then they saw you dance a wedding and they knew why?
Covert: Yeah (laughs). Exactly.

•••

Safety
Dave Duerson

Q: When did you know this team was as big as it was?
Duerson: For us, we knew it was special because as we were going through it, we’d run into guys — and it didn’t matter where you were at — and they’d tell you exactly what player he identified with on the ’85 Bears. Some would say, ‘Man, you saved my marriage.’ Guys were able to vent through us on Sundays. What’s interesting about it is that those same guys, if you run into them today, they’d tell you the same thing. They could tell you where they were for certain games, the Super Bowl, what we had for dinner, what we were drinking. I think it galvanized this city and raised the expectations for the entire city because Chicago’s always been the Second City. But after we did what we did, I don’t think Chicago took a backseat to New York anymore, at least related to football. ... What happened for us was so unique, I think that’s why it’s still popular today. Wherever you are, people talk about the ’85 Bears. I don’t care where you’re at. It’s not just in Chicago. I just got back from the Dominican Republic, and they know the ’85 Bears. I remember going to Moscow for 11 days to train some former Olympic athletes in American football. They had satellite television. They knew all of us.

We did something special that transcended the game and brought passion back to sport. And just as important, we were at the early stages of the marketing side of things and the gazillions now that the Jordans, Tigers and Kournikovas are benefiting from. It all started with us, oddly enough.

Q: Tell me about the Ditka-Buddy relationship.
Duerson: I don’t if they actually had a relationship. As far as Buddy was concerned, he wasn’t beholden to Mike, and he made that pretty clear to Mike on a continuous basis. Mike Ditka and Buddy Ryan were two of the most arrogant SOBs you’ll ever run into. But I think they both recognized and realized at that time that they couldn’t survive without the other, no matter what they tried.

Buddy was a defensive genius who came up with a concept that he had been trying for years, probably the late ’50s, early ’60s, and it didn’t work. It didn’t work until ’84, and then it blossomed in ’85. Why? Because of the personnel. Again, hats off to Buddy, but it was a concept he had been trying for more than 25 years that hadn’t worked. So you’ve got to give the players their due.

Dan Hampton is a freak of nature. He’s a guy who had knee surgery on a Wednesday. Not a scope. He got cut and had staples. And I watched him play three-and-a-half quarters of excellent football that Sunday. At halftime, we’d untape his cleat and pour the blood out of the base of his shoe. That’s a real man. That has nothing to do with Buddy Ryan’s concepts. That’s the heart of a man. Gary Fencik, a brainiac, always in position to make a play. Leslie Frazier, the most underrated defensive back in the NFL during that time. Should’ve been an All-Pro several times and was in our book. A lot of special guys up and down the line. Buddy Ryan had nothing to do with that, but at the same time, there was something special about Buddy that he did pull it out of each and every one of those guys, myself included. He had a love-hate relationship with a lot of people. There were those guys that he absolutely loved and those that he abhorred. But all points in time, it was about X’s and O’s. When you came to work, you could see the disparity in the relationships as far as Buddy and Mike, Buddy and some players as well as other players and Mike Ditka. As Mike would tell you from the beginning, you may not like me, but damnit, you’re going to respect me.

The interesting thought about that is you can’t demand someone’s respect. You’ve got to earn it. And that’s exactly what he did.

My rookie year, in 1983, we were playing in Baltimore and got jobbed by the officials. We’re in the locker room and Mike says, ‘Man, I just have one thing to say,’ and then he took his fist and hit this solid oak locker. He broke his wrist, and it was kind of funny to us because he was wincing as soon as he did it and started calling out to (the trainer) because he needed help.

But the fact that he was that pissed off, and it wasn’t for show. It was straight passion. And everybody bought into that. We were like, ‘Man, that dude is real.’ And whether Mike knows it or not, he got the respect of everybody in the locker room based on that one action. All the other stuff, the antics and attitude and arrogance, the fact of the matter is here was a guy you’d love to play for because he played the game and he’s passionate about what we’re doing. He’s not going to settle for anything less than our best.

Q: Why were people not looking forward to playing you guys on Sunday?
Duerson: Before kickoff, you’d see (Steve) McMichael and some of the other guys walk down that way to watch the other team to size guys up and let them know that we’re here, barking and all that. There was certainly a lot of that, particularly as the season went along.

When we went into Dallas (for a memorable 44-0 win), we were arrogant from the time we got off the plane. When we finally walked into the stadium, it was like we owned the place. And I think the Cowboys sensed we owned it too. That was part of what set us apart. We could see it in the eyes of our opponents in most instances. And that was certainly true on Super Bowl Sunday because Tony Eason was scared shitless. He was terrified. That’s the God’s honest truth. I’ve never seen anybody that scared before. He was absolutely terrified.

Q: Who was the worst dancer in the Super Bowl Shuffle?
Duerson: Had to be between Steve Fuller and Gary Fencik.

Q: Picking on the white guys, huh?
Duerson: It is what it is (laughs). It’s not a racist kind of statement, but those two cannot dance at all. I know some brothers that can’t dance too now, but they were bad.

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