30 Reasons to Love The Super Bowl Champion Chicago Bears on Their 30th Anniversary

Next weekend, American football fans will celebrate by watching the 50th edition of the Super Bowl. Either the Broncos or the Panthers will join 49 other teams who have reached the pinnacle of the nation’s favorite sport.

But it was better than all the rest. Combined.

The 1985 Chicago Bears team who won Super Bowl XX was as dominant as they come. They rolled through the regular season with only one loss and easily outmatched anyone who crossed their path in the postseason. The “85 Bears” phrase is still used as a comparison for dominance, and 30 years later, Chicagoans still remember the season like it was last year.

Even though it has now been 30 years since the team brought home the world championship on Jan. 26 in New Orleans, many Chicagoans can still name more players from that team than the one that took the field in 2015.

Thirty years later, here are 30 of the best reasons we will always love our 1985 Chicago Bears.

• Da Fridge… Rookie William “The Refrigerator” Perry becomes a household name after Head Coach Mike Ditka puts him in on offense to cap an exclamation mark on a vital road win at San Francisco and then the next week scores a rushing touchdown at home against the Packers on Monday Night Football. The massive defensive lineman also scored on offense in the Super Bowl.
• During a three-game stretch in November against Dallas, Atlanta and Detroit, the Bears outscored their opponents 104-3. A statement 44-0 win at Texas Stadium was followed by a 36-0 home shutout over Atlanta. The week before their trip to Dallas, the Bears topped the Lions 24-3 at Soldier Field.
• The most dominant season in team history started off anything but pretty. The Bears trailed the last place Tampa Bay Buccaneers, 28-17 at halftime of a Week 1 tilt at Soldier Field.
• The Bears also struggled in the preseason that year, going 1-3.
• The Punky QB… Jim McMahon was always doing something in 1985. In Minnesota, he convinced Ditka to put him in the game despite being limited to injury. A pair of TDs to Dennis McKinnon that night saved the team’s unbeaten record early in the year. After being fined for wearing his trademark headband, he wrote the name “Rozelle” on it during his next public appearance, a special toast to the NFL Commissioner who fined him. He also mooned the helicopters hovering over the team’s practice ahead of Super Bowl XX.
• The Ditka-Buddy Ryan feud. This started in 1982 when Ditka was given the head coach job over Ryan, who was already in place as the team’s defensive leader. It progressed even more during the Dallas game when Ditka wanted to call off the dogs during a beatdown but Ryan kept his foot on the gas pedal, resulting in a 44-0 tally. After the season, Ryan took the head coaching job with the Philadelphia Eagles, but never led the team to a playoff victory. As much as they loathed each other, neither one really found any NFL coaching success without the other.
• Rex Ryan, the current head coach of the Buffalo Bills and Buddy’s son, was a ballboy for the ‘85 Bears.
• As great as Buddy’s defense was in 1985, the Vince Tobin-led Bears’ D in 1986 actually gave up fewer points than the championship squad. The entire team in 1986 was almost as good, too. They went 14-2 in the regular season and were just assumed to repeat as champions. But a divisional round loss to the Washington Redskins crushed dreams of a dynasty and Chicago didn’t reach the Super Bowl for another 21 years.
• The game that led up to Super Bowl XX was almost as gratifying as the title itself. The NFC Championship against the L.A. Rams was in Chicago, and just as the Bears were about to clinch the win, snow flurries began to fall and Wilber Marshall picked up a Rams fumble and returned it for a touchdown in front of a joyous Soldier Field crowd.
• The Bears were so great, and so confident in 1985, that they released the “Super Bowl Shuffle” the day after their only LOSS of the season. It really wasn’t that bold of them either. They were clearly the best that year and no one was going to stop them.
• The actual dominance from 1985 was spoofed years later in a recurring Saturday Night Live skit. You know the one where George Wendt, Mike Myers, Robert Smigel and Chris Farley praise “Da Bearss” and “Ditka” like no hurricane could stop them.
• The words to that “Super Bowl Shuffle” can still be recited by any Bears fan today. It became part of pop culture, as did the team itself.
• The 1985 season was a sweet swan song for the Honey Bears, the team’s beloved cheerleaders. Owner Virginia McCaskey did away with them following the season, but they were around for the franchise’s finest hour.
• Some moments on the field stick out more than others. The Marshall fumble recovery was one for sure. But so was the play in the NFC Divisional Playoff game against the New York Giants when Giants punter Sean Landeta completely whiffed on a kick deep in his own territory leading to an easy Bears touchdown.
• The Bears outscored their two NFC Playoff opponents, the Giants and Rams, by a combined score of 45-0 en route to the Super Bowl. Even the next best teams in the conference were no match for Chicago in 1985.
• Third string defensive player Henry Waechter didn’t have a long NFL career. He played sparingly in the 1980s with a few NFL teams and was on the field for few plays for the Bears in 1985. But he managed to specialize in the rarely-scored safety. He put up two points for the Bears during the closing minutes of the Atlanta game and then scored the last two during the Super Bowl blowout over New England.
• After an early Walter Payton fumble, it was actually the New England Patriots who scored first in the Super Bowl. A field goal, which at the time had been the fastest points ever scored in a Super Bowl, gave New England a 3-0 lead. That was before the Monsters woke up and ended it with one of the most lopsided games in Super Bowl history.
• The team’s only loss of the season - a Monday nighter at Miami - capped off an ugly weekend for Chicagoland football teams in the Sunshine State. The night before, the Notre Dame Fighting Irish were spanked by the Miami Hurricanes in a game that has since been known as “Catholics vs. Convicts.”
• Another low moment of the season was Ditka’s DWI arrest following the big win at San Francisco. “Don’t do anything stupid,” HE told the players the night before.
• The ‘85 Bears defense now boasts three NFL Hall of Famers. Mike Singletary, Dan Hampton and Richard Dent. Walter Payton is of course enshrined as well.
• As part of the age-old rivalry with the Green Bay Packers, the Cheeseheads from the north left horse manure in the Bears’ locker room prior to the game at Lambeau Field. The Bears still dominated, though, and even had “Da Fridge” catch a TD pass for revenge. Yes, there was a time when the Bears dominated their rivalry with the Packers and that time was called the 1980s.
• The Packers leveled a bunch of Bears during that game with late hits and even threw Walter Payton over a bench out of bounds. Forrest Gregg was such a dirty coach.
• The Bears were so great in 1985, no other team was even good. It was a rare mediocre year for the usually dominant San Francisco 49ers of the 1980s. The Bears handled them easily in a rematch of the previous year’s NFC Championship Game. The best teams in the AFC, the Raiders and Dolphins, both lost home playoff games to a New England team that proved to be inferior in every way to the Bears in the Super Bowl. Chicago clinched the NFC Central after Week 11, with five games to go in the season.
• The ‘85 Bear who remained on the team the longest was kicker Kevin Butler, who played with the Bears until 1996, when he was cut in the preseason by Dave Wannstedt. Other Bears who played into the 1990s include Perry, Singletary, Dent, Hampton, Mark Bortz and Steve McMichael, who we’ll forgive for his brief Packer stint at the end of his football career.
• Four members of the legendary team went on the become NFL head coaches. Two have been successful, and two others were not. Former linebacker Ron Rivera has the Carolina Panthers in this years Super Bowl and current Rams skipper Jeff Fisher, who was on the injured reserve list for the ‘85 Bears, went to the Super Bowl when he was coaching the Tennessee Titans in 1999. Mike Singletary, who coached the 49ers for a few years and Leslie Frazier, the former Vikings boss, did not see nearly that level of success.
• With all the talk around the team’s defense, the Bears also led the NFL in offense - scoring more points than any other squad during the regular season.
• The team has its own Facebook ‘Community,’ with more than 35,000 followers. The Chicago Sun-Times has re-published its print coverage from 1985 online this year on a daily basis.
• Payton never scored in the Super Bowl ... Despite having numerous opportunities to get Sweetness in the end zone against an inferior Patriots team, Walter was unable to get the ball in the end zone. Perry, McMahon and Matt Suhey all scored instead on goaline opportunities. Ditka called it the biggest regret of his career. While the ‘85 Bears were full of legends, no one deserved a championship - and a touchdown in the big game - more than Walter. He was a Bear from the start of his career in 1975 to when he retired following the team’s 1987 campaign.
• The final score of Super Bowl XX was 46-10, fitting for a team that prided itself on its ‘46’ Defense. Leading 44-10 in the closing minutes, a safety from Waechter closed out the game with the numerically significant point total.
• Every player on the team is most remembered for being a Chicago Bear. A 1985 Chicago Bear.