‘85 Bears Built Legacy That Is Still Felt By NFC North Opponents

Forbes

31-07-2025

Chasing greatness in the NFC North has left every team with the most difficult challenge in the league.
Forty years ago, the Chicago Bears had the greatest team in their history, and arguably the greatest one-year champions the NFL has ever seen. The 1985 Bears went 15-1 in the regular season with a marauding group that included the nastiest defense the game has ever seen – with no apologies to the Steel Curtain of the 1970s or the 2000 Baltimore Ravens.
The '85 Bears had a relentless defense that included Hall of Famers Dan Hampton, Mike Singletary, Richard Dent and Steve McMichael along with an angry and motivated defensive coordinator in James David 'Buddy' Ryan.
The defensive coordinator thought owner George Halas should have named him head coach in 1982 but the nod went to the legendary Mike Ditka. There was resentment in both directions and the two men were definitely not friends. But they worked well together and built the best defense in the history of the sport.
That includes the Steel Curtain defense of the Pittsburgh Steelers in the late 1970s and the 2000 Baltimore Ravens. Fans of those teams may argue, but the ferocity factor gives the '85 Bears the edge every time.
Offensively, the combination of Walter Payton, Jim McMahon and an offensive line led by left tackle Jimbo Covert was the perfect complement to the defense.
The Bears brought a ferociousness every week of the 1985 season, and they were particularly effective against division opponents.
It was known as the NFC Central through the 2001 season and also included the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, but the Bears performance against their current NFC North opponents was particularly informative to the team's legacy.
Vikings had Bears on the run, until they didn't
It started in Week Three against the Minnesota Vikings in a rare Thursday night game. The Bears were getting outplayed in the Metrodome by Tommy Kramer and Anthony Carter and trailed 17-9 deep into the third quarter. That's when McMahon came off the bench and fired three TD passes -- a bomb to Willie Gault and two to Dennis McKinnon -- and turned defeat into a 33-24 victory.
The Vikings had no idea what hit them.
Four weeks later, the Bears introduced themselves to the nation in a Monday Night Football game against their archrivals, the Green Bay Packers. There was a genuine dislike between Ditka and Packers head coach Forrest Gregg, and the Bears punished the Packers all night long. They forced 5 Green Bay turnovers and Ditka fired a shot across the bow when he put 335-pound rookie defensive tackle William "The Refrigerator" Perry in the backfield and had him run into the endzone for a third-quarter touchdown.
The play would help turn Perry into a national phenomenon and a huge part of the Bears legend. Perry would catch a TD pass from McMahon when the Bears and Packers met in Green Bay two weeks later.
The Detroit Lions may be the most dynamic NFC challenger to the Philadelphia Eagles in 2025, but they were a 7-9 team in 1985 and could not compete with the Bears.
Chicago's defense was simply too mean and brutal for the Lions offense. This point was driven home in the final game of the regular season when ultraviolent linebacker Wilber Marshall obliterated Detroit quarterbacks Joe Ferguson and Erik Hipple with brutal hits that would be ruled illegal in today's game.
The Bears have not been close to putting another team on the field that comes close to matching what they did 40 years ago. They dominated the NFL during the regular-season and were even more devastating in the postseason with one-sided victories over the New York Giants, Los Angeles Rams and New England Patriots.
They served notice of what kind of year it would against those three divisional opponents, who were forced to go through the nightmare of playing the Bears twice in that memorable season.
The NFL has rarely seen the kind of devastation and domination displayed by the 1985 Bears.