It's June, it's hot, (college) baseball is over, and football can't get here fast enough.
Fortunately, the NFL Network delivered a nice reprieve: a replay of the 1985 matchup between the Packers and "da Bears" at Lambeau Field. And it was glorious.
The '85 Bears need no introduction. So we'll introduce them: Think Mike Ditka, Walter Payton, Jim McMahon, Buddy Ryan's 46 defense (which included former Razorback great Dan Hampton), William "the Refrigerator" Perry, the Super Bowl Shuffle . . .
Those Bears are considered one of the greatest NFL teams of all time, certainly the most iconic, and their defense the finest ever. They finished the regular season 15-1, gave up a mere 12 points a game and won the NFC Central by seven games. And weren't challenged in the playoffs, shutting out both the Giants and Rams before routing the Patriots, 46-10, in the Super Bowl.
But looking back from the perspective of almost four decades, several things stood out from that day in November 1985:
There's the flamboyant Jim McMahon subtly milking officials into stopping play three times because of excessive crowd noise. Trailing 3-0, the Bears faced a third and goal inside the final minute of the first half, and Lambeau was doing its thing. McMahon walked up to center (the shotgun still an outlier) three straight times and simply stood there as if a snap count was an impossibility amid that roar.
There's the surreal image of Packer defenders urging their fans to turn down the volume. One forgets that teams could be penalized for that back then. Green Bay wasn't penalized, but the play clock was turned off.
The crowd just as loud, McMahon had no trouble with the snap count on his fourth approach, and a fake power right to Walter Payton, with the Fridge lined up in the backfield as an eligible receiver and the decoy lead blocker, found him all alone in the end zone. Used in goal-line situations often by the Bears that year, the 300-pound defensive lineman had his first touchdown reception.
There's the footage of Dan Hampton getting another sack on his way to a Pro Football Hall of Fame career; of Sweetness splitting seams and running through tackles, on the downhill side of his prime but still one of the best in the game; of another former Hog, the Packers' Jessie Clark, with a 55-yard TD catch to beat a Bears blitz and put Green Bay up 10-7 in the third.
Then there's McMahon and Packers defenders sparring at the end of numerous plays--pushes, shoves, words spoken . . . and yet, no flags. Rivalries used to mean something.
Walter Payton's 27-yard TD scamper midway through the fourth put Chicago on top, and Green Bay's upset bid effectively was done.
There were few flags, no official reviews, no corporate logos and no Hollywood production of a broadcast--just football. And now, especially with the local home team trending up, that's what we could use. Just some football.