I’m going to blatantly ignore the unceremonious end to
the professional baseball season. You
good with that O’s fans? Nats fans? Thought so.
A furry mammal, a 30-year-old football team and a wig-wearing American legend
is on the docket…
The 1985 Chicago Bears are, for my money, the greatest
NFL team of the Super Bowl era. After a
15-1 regular season (11 of those wins were by double digits), the Bears won three
playoff games, including Super Bowl XX, by a combined score of 91-10.
Chicago’s offense featured future Hall of Fame RB
Walter Payton, flashy but gritty QB Jim McMahon, and lightning fast WR Willie
Gault. The identity of that great Bears
team, though, was its devastating and historic defense. Middle linebacker Mike Singletary and
defensive lineman Dan Hampton and Richard Dent are in the Hall of Fame. Outside linebackers Otis Wilson and Wilbur
Marshall wreaked havoc off the edge.
Defensive lineman Steve McMichael was a two-time All-Pro and safeties Gary
Fencik and the late Dave Duerson were as good as any in the league.
More than a collection of talented football players,
the ’85 Bears were a crossover pop culture phenomena. Rotund DT William “The Refrigerator” Perry
caught the nation’s fancy with his lovable girth and touchdown plunges. McMahon was a professional wrestling persona
in cleats. Head Coach Mike Ditka was the
perfect booming, unpolished personality to lead this band of bandits and brash defensive
coordinator Buddy Ryan made sacks, turnovers and shutouts cool.
Collectively the Bears played hard, won often and
embraced fame. They shot television
commercials and, true to the MTV era of the mid-80’s, made a corny music video
- The Super Bowl Shuffle. Always a sports
documentary in the making, ESPN recently made it official by featuring the ’85
Bears in a “30 for 30” episode.
One question has lingered about those fabulous and fun
’85 Bears: Why did they manage just one Super Bowl appearance? They had a nice run – five consecutive division
titles from 1984-88 – but that single championship is a lonely piece of
hardware for a roster with dynastic capabilities.
The answer was revealed in that “30 for 30” piece and
explained by James Madison, unsuspecting football whisperer, in Federalist
Paper No. 10 (a centuries old political document): The Bears were a fractured
group.
Ryan was hired as defensive coordinator in 1978, four
full season before Ditka was hired as head coach. His defensive unit was fiercely loyal, even
lobbying ownership to retain Ryan in 1982.
By 1985, the defense was dominant, among the very best in league history;
the offense was…okay. The performance
delta created tension between Ryan’s defense and Ditka’s offense and between Ryan
and Ditka personally. In a way, the
defense was its own faction, existing and operating as an isolated entity.
So what does a founding father have to offer about NFL
football? Well, in arguing for a new
form of government in late 1787, Madison, noting the human compulsion for factious
discord, wrote, “A zeal for different opinions…have in turn divided mankind
into parties, inflamed them with mutual animosity, and rendered them much more
disposed to vex and oppress each other than to cooperate for their common
good.” He went on to comment that “So
strong is this propensity of mankind to fall into mutual animosities”, the new
government shouldn’t seek to combat the cause of inevitable faction but only
seek, “…the means of controlling its effects.”
That is brutal commentary on our species, but it is,
unfortunately, spot on. The division
within the Bears teams of the mid 80’s was insufficiently controlled and,
ultimately, diminished its accomplishments.
There was too much defense versus offense and not enough prevailing,
unselfish commitment to a common cause.
Be it 1787, 1985 or 2016, and whether the test subject
is a personal relationship, a professional team or our representative
government, the challenge is to promote spirited, constructive debate and avoid
rogue faction. Our next big test arrives
on November 9 when we will wake up either excited, disappointed or indifferent;
but, regardless, we will still be Americans tasked with the responsibility of
building a more perfect union.
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