Hard to believe it's been 10 years.

In the mid-70s my beloved Bears were shitty. Very, very shitty.

I was 16 in 1975, and very caught up in the sport of football. I was a high school kicker when the Bears picked Walter Payton in the first round of the NFL draft. People think kickers aren't real players. Not real members of the team...until we miss a PAT. Then they get the bigger picture.

I was absolutely obsessed with football, and I followed everything about the Bears. Everything. No idea who this guy was when we picked him 4th in the 1st Round.

That was before the InterWeb TubeNets.

Jackson State?

Whooo-what?

CBS Channel 2 ran some grainy video that night. Bruce Roberts screaming smack and comparisons to Gale Sayers.

Yeah right. But I watched.

Hey, this Payton guy's good.

But maybe he's just running around and over idiots. Maybe he just looks like Superman because his opponents all suck. Or maybe, he's that good. I'm a Bear fan, so I went with he's that good.

He was that good.

For the first 10 years of Walter Payton's career, he was essentially the only reason to watch the Bears games, and I watched every damned one of them.

I had never seen, nor have I seen since, a better football player than Walter Payton. The only other runner I'd put in Wally's class is Barry Sanders. Another guy who could break your ankles.

As a 5'10", 205lb rookie, Walter still had the speed of youth. He could get to the corner. And, because he was Walter, he'd turn that corner, and cut north looking for somebody to run over.

Run out of bounds? Walter Payton? Uh, no not so much.

He'd gain a first down, stiff-arm you into a neck brace, insult your dog, and then help you up off the ground.

For a decade, Walter was the face of this somewhat oldish football franchise while they languished.

The Bears sucked out loud, and yet they'd sell out. People wanted to watch Walter run. He'd gain 100 yards, and people would be happy. Loss? Who gives a shit, did you see that over-the-top springboard thing Walter did?

Walter was also the Bears backup punter, kicker (Yeah baby!!!), and 3rd string QB.

I think one year Walter threw (as a running back) 3 touchdown passes, or maybe it was 10.

They tell me he punted a ball 80 yards up at Lake Forest one day.

But he was always on shitty teams.

And then it happened. 1

0 years into Walter's career, the Bears defense had one of those weird time-space things where suddenly everyone is a beast. The line, was Hampton, Fridge, McMichael, and Hartenstein. The LBs, were Otis Wilson, Mike Singletary, and Wilbur Marshall.

No need to name the D-backs, because nobody ever got through the first two gears of the meat-grinder. (Fencik, Frazier, Richardson, and I forget...Terry Schmitt?)

Heck, even a sucky QB like Jim McMahon had a decent year.

Anyway, finally Walter Payton got to play in a Super Bowl. The 1985 Bears were a force of nature. Best I ever saw. Walter had slowed a step, but he'd given this city so much joy by then, that everyone saw the 46-10 trouncing of the Patriots as the culmination of a career for Walter Payton.

There was some grumbling afterward about Ditka letting Fridge score a TD, and Walter being left with his dick in his hand, but you rarely heard Wally even talk about it. When asked, he'd dodge the question and then stiff-arm the reporter in the mouth before gaining a first down.

In his astonishing NFL career Walter Payton:

Ran for 16,726 yards.
Rushed for 110 touchdowns.
Caught 15 touchdown passes.
Threw for 8 touchdowns.
And, when combining kickoff/punt returns, rushes. passes and catches....accounted for just under 22,000 yards of Bears offense.

On mostly shitty teams.

Twenty two thousand yards. About 13 miles.

Back in the day, for awhile I drove a limo.

It was after Wally had retired.

I was parked in front of the Oak Brook Hills Hotel, when who came walking out the front revolving door but Walter Payton. As he approached me on the sidewalk, I quickly pulled out my airport numbers and jammed a 3 and a 4 in front of my usual number 80.

Now I was American 34.

He saw what I'd done, I made a big production out of it, and he just pointed at me as I saluted him from the driver's seat.

Walter was the shit.

And then it happened.

Walter Payton got sick.

At first he'd kept his illness quiet, but word got out.

We all knew.

10 years ago today, Walter Payton lost his battle with a rare autoimmune liver disease. Even though we knew, it shocked the shit out of this town. People cried when they heard the news. We'd lost family.

While Walter was never a candidate, his wife Connie and their kids have stayed front and center in raising awareness of organ donation, with the help of our Secretary of State Jesse White.

Hey folks, consider organ donation, okay?

Save a life on your way out of the party.

Beautiful, Schmutzie. A beautiful tribute to a really stellar human being.

It is a rare thing when one of our sports idols lives up to our expectations.

Aw, Sweetness. Our son got his autograph years ago.

Did you know Payton use to tie a tire around his waist & run up hill?

I am an organ donor, but not sure what I have that can be used. My eyes are bad & I smoke. But I don;t drink, so my liver should be good. They can take whatever is usable.

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thank you. i loved the guy too, of course.

I'd never had that thought or heard that take on the Fridge TD. I'd just thought it was Ditka's arrogance, or signature on the game, that he had to do that.

Running backs .. just some others that (in their prime) made men look like boys: Juice (of course); Dickerson; Earl Campbell (such a short career). I wouldn't put Franco Harris or Tony Dorsett in that group, though they had their moments, nor LaDanian even in that great season of his. I guess here I'm defining my tier two after the three you mentioned. Jimmy Brown before my time. Oh, and Adrian Peterson .. can you imagine him against the 220 pound linebackers of two decades ago?

Hey DB~

In Illinois we just sign the back of our Driver's License (and check the box in the license renewal form.) That allows the doctors to decide which parts of smokers like us are worth recycling. I'm sure at the very least somebody will want my penis, because it works great.

Smutty

I'm thinking Peterson= Ovechkin.

A few more years, and we may be redefining.

Top tier~ Wally, Brown, Juice, Sayers,Sanders.

Peterson is right there.

Dickerson was on track, right up until he ran into the 46 D in the snow at Soldier Field.

Oh man, did Singletary clean his friggin' clock. Damn near knocked him into retirement.

Franco, Earl, , TD, ....time tested. Next level down.

I just can't put Emmitt Smith in the top picture. Don't ask me why.

But for all-around skill, it's Wally.

Right. You build a running back, you've built Peterson*. You build a hockey player, you build Ovechkin. I wouldn't change a thing.

Emmitt hung on to get the record, nothing wrong with that (his perspective), it just didn't feel right. Anyway, he wasn't with those others, peak value. I took a look at all-time best seasons, Marshall Faulk and Terrell Davis up there too, I didn't see much of them.

* apologies to Pinball Clemons

Imagine if Dr. James Andrews could have worked on Gale Sayers instead of Dr. Ted Fox.

These dudes come back from scoping in two weeks. ACL? No biggie, see you next season.

Hard to compare across time lines really.

"...one of those weird time-space things where suddenly everyone is a beast."

Almost four decades ago, one running back (fullback) led his team to a record unmatched since. He had none of the sheer athleticism of Sweetness, amassed no lifetime record rivalling the truly great, in fact would probably miss most lists of top-tier rushers, but that one shining season he accomplished something even Sweetness never matched.

Oh, others also contributed - Don Shula, Bob Griese, Paul Warfield, Mercury Morris, the fabled "54 Defence", but to me it's the image of Larry Czonka ploughing through defenders with tacklers hanging off him like porcupine quills which typifies that Perfect Season.

Perfect Season.

#39 in your programs, #1 in our hearts. Yeah, Czonk was something. He was Earl Campbell for Earl Campbell was Earl Campbell.

Kinda surprised JackD didn't pop in to chastise me for my omission of Richard Dent on the 85 defense.

Nice post. Payton really deserved that ring after all the years he put in with those shitty teams.

I'm sure you've seen this.

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Heard an interesting take on it. Rather than MORE protection, maybe we need LESS protection. There's this idea in the game that the equipment makes players invincible, so they throw themselves into the play head-first with abandon. Lineman are especially susceptible because they use their heads as battering rams on every play. Conversely, there isn't the same instance of brain injuries in rugby players because, being completely unprotected by equipment, they tend to protect their own heads.

I think the same thing may apply to today's hockey players. A poster called make the case (TQM?) highlighted a couple of hits last week that resulted in unconsciousness and probable concussions. It seems to me that truly vicious hits have increased since helmets were mandated.

I doubt that US audiences would stand for it, but if we dialed back the armor just a bit, would players be a little more cautious and maybe safer in the long term?

*Didn't mean to be a wet blanket on such a positive post, but I'm interested in other sports fans' thoughts.

The guys on WSCR grabbed that Culverhouse story right away, and spent a few days discussing the issue. The idea that a former LB can't remember where he lives is gut wrenching. Ever watch rugby? They ain't wearing helmets, and they sure as hell have some collisions. Interested to know the concussion rates among ruggers v football players. Someone should keep an eye on Troy Aikman too. I think he had 9 concussions or something. That can't be long-term encouraging.

Also, check out the video of Willie Mitchell knocking Jonathan Toews onto queer street with a perfectly clean open-ice check. Toews has now missed 4 games with "concussion like symptoms."

I'm pretty sure it's a concussion.