can i interest you in Mike Ditka and the 1985 Chicago Bears?

Mike Ditka was a hall of fame coach but mostly he was a star on SNL and wore cool sweater vests

A few weeks ago, I spent the better part of three days writing nearly four-thousand words about the late hall of fame coach Mike Ditka and the 1985 Chicago Bears for ESPN. The magazine is now out and for sale on newsstands at your local airport.

Because print-first media can’t really be replicated online — which is mostly a good thing — I’m uploading some of what I wrote below for your reading pleasure.

Be sure to print this webpage and share a hard copy with your uncle who lives in the Chicago area. I promise, this type of content goes very hard for men of a certain age.

Actually, better yet, buy him a copy via Amazon.

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THE STARS OF ’85

The magical Super Bowl-winning roster was led by the Monsters of the Midway, a brazen QB and all-time great running back Walter Payton

Walter Payton

The future Hall of Fame running back turned 32 in 1985 and may have lost a quarter step from his early days, but Payton still turned in a first-team All-Pro season that year, rushing for 1,551 yards and nine scores, finishing second in MVP voting behind Raiders’ tailback Marcus Allen. “Sweetness,” as Payton was known, carried the ball 324 times during the ’85 season and caught 49 passes, truly a generational talent that many consider the best to ever line up in an NFL backfield, coach Dikta among them. After Payton’s untimely death, at 46 in 1999, Ditka said, “I looked at Walter differently. I got as much pleasure watching him block somebody as watching him run for a touchdown. Or watching him catch a pass or throw a pass or kick the ball. He could do it all.

Jim McMahon

Perhaps no Bears player better embodied the brash ’85 Bears (or the ’80s in general) than Chicago’s quarterback, who wore his heart on his hand-drawn headband throughout the season—including, during the playoffs, “Rozelle,” mocking NFL commissioner Pete Rozelle—unconcerned with what league rules had to say about it. Mad Mac, under offensive coordinator Ed Hughes, posted career highs in ’85 with 2,392 yards and 15 touchdowns. In the Super Bowl, McMahon connected with Willie Gault for a 60-yard play out of his own end zone and rushed for two scores in the 46-10 blowout over the Patriots. Ditka, who had drafted McMahon three years earlier, later called his gunslinger “the perfect fit for our personality.”

Steve McMichael

Ditka probably said it best about the Hall of Famer in 2021: “[McMichael] was a no-nonsense guy. He didn’t take any [garbage] from anybody, including his teammates. You had to love him. He was special.” McMichael, nicknamed “Mongo,” was indeed special, earning a first-team All-Pro spot in ‘85 when he registered 44 solo tackles and a safety, later sacking Patriots quarterback Tony Eason in the Super Bowl. After retiring from football, McMichael found success in professional wrestling, teaming up with Ric Flair as part of the “Four Horseman” in 1996 after providing ring-side commentary alongside Vince McMahon. McMichael passed away in 2025 at age 67 after a five-year battle with ALS.

Dave Duerson

Duerson snagged five interceptions in 1985 and forced a fumble from the strong safety position while earning his first of four straight trips to the Pro Bowl. He logged five solo tackles in the Super Bowl against the Pats, and he later won another title with the 1990 Giants. Duerson’s on-field contributions for the ‘80s Bears teams will never be forgotten. Coach Ditka said he was “the whole package” who “did everything.” After Duerson died in 2011, at age 50, he became closely associated with chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE) as it was later confirmed he suffered from the degenerative disease. He was among the first prominent players who asked that his brain be studied after his passing. Duerson was depicted by actor Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje in 2015’s Concussion, a film about the NFL’s discovery that players were suffering chronic pain from repeated hits to the head.

Willie Gault

The fastest Bears player of all time left defensive backs in the dust and kickoff teams gasping for air. While he only played four seasons in Chicago, Gault caught 184 passes for 3,650 yards with the team, and during the ‘85 season he returned 22 kicks for 577 yards, including a 99-yard scoring dash against the Redskins. He lit up the Bears’ playoff run that championship season, catching 11 passes for 253 yards, nine first downs and a score across three games. Gault, who later played six seasons with the Raiders, was part of the world record-setting squad in the 4x100-meter relay team (with Emmit King, Calvin Smith and Carl Lewis) at the 1983 World Championships and in 1988 made the U.S. Olympic bobsledding team as an alternate. In the more than three decades since he retired, Gault’s 19.9 yard per catch remains seventh-best all-time among NFL wideouts.

William Perry

A rookie in ’85 but already with enough size to warrant a place on the field, Perry started nine games on Ditka’s championship team, and when they gave him the ball on the goal line against Green Bay in October, he became the heaviest man in NFL history to score a touchdown on a set play. Indeed, his 6-foot-2, 335-pound frame (earning him the nickname “The Refrigerator”) under that No. 72 jersey remains among the indelible images from that season in Chicago when he starred on and off the field, appearing on talk shows around the country, including a visit with David Letterman. A firstround draft pick out of Clemson, Perry never made a Pro Bowl or landed on any All-Pro lists, but his presence was impossible to ignore. And who can forget when The Fridge scored against the Packers for the second time that season, this time on a four-yard pass from from Jim McMahon? Coach Ditka had drawn it up. “I said: ‘If he can block and he can run, he can catch’. So we threw him a touchdown pass.

Richard Dent

Dent, an eighth-round pick two years earlier out of Tennessee State, surpassed all expectations when he was named firstteam All-Pro in 1985 after leading the league in sacks (17.0). He secured his second-straight Pro Bowl nod that year thanks in part to picking off two passes and returning one for a touchdown. Big No. 95 stood 6-foot-5 and harassed offensive lines and quarterbacks across the league, including the 49ers’ Joe Montana when he sacked him twice in a 26-10 victory in October, followed by two more against Dan Marino and the Dolphins in December. Dent had a rocky relationship with Ditka and defensive coordinator Buddy Ryan throughout his playing days and also in later years. In 2012, he said Chicago could have won three Super Bowls if they had had better quarterback play, and accused coaches of mismanaging the position. Personal issues aside, Ditka conceded in 1989 that having Dent on the field “seemed to make a big difference.”

Dan Hampton

Hampton’s sack total (6.5) in ’85 dipped from the year prior, when he was named a first-team All-Pro. That was partially due to opposing offenses putting two or three guys on the future Hall of Famer, who stood 6-foot-5 and weighed 270 pounds and could run like a safety—and hit even harder. Hampton, enshrined in Canton in 2002, scooped up a fumble against the Patriots in the Super Bowl, setting up a field goal to give the Bears a lead they would never relinquish. Hampton was a Ditka guy. The hard nose coach publicly supported him throughout his career including when Hampton missed significant time due to knee injuries. The love was mutual. Said Hampton upon Ditka’s passing: “He became a beloved figure to all of us on the football team. The term urban myth was invented to describe Mike Ditka. He was bigger than life.”