After 13 Seasons, Payton Comes Up Just a Yard Short

“Give him five more yards,” Gary Haeger said. “Come on, give him room. Get back. Give him another yard or two.”

Walter Payton found a hole, and picked his way through it. Gary Haeger ran interference. A path was dozed through a pack of bodies that blocked the way to Payton’s locker.

Payton finally got there, and took a seat. He closed his eyes. He tilted his head back against the locker, and kept his eyes shut, and sat there.

And sat there.

And sat there.

And didn’t move.

Give him another yard. Come on, give him room. Get back. Give him another yard or two.

One more yard, and Walter Payton would still be out there. His career would not be over. The Chicago Bears would have a first down. They would still have the football, and 41 seconds on the clock, and 57 yards to travel.

If they could get to the Washington end zone before the clock’s last tock, Walter Payton could keep on running. He could return next week for the National Football Conference championship game. And maybe he could run after that in the Super Bowl. And maybe he could run, run, run, until it stopped being fun.

Just give him one more yard.

Except, the game just isn’t played that way. You don’t give anybody anything. You don’t give an inch, much less a yard. You give away nothing, even if it’s Walter Payton who needs the yard.

So, when Redskin cornerback Barry Wilburn saw him coming, saw him trying to turn the corner, he yanked Walter Payton by the arm, then rode him out of bounds like a rodeo cowboy on a calf. He did not give Payton the extra yard.

The Bears were one yard short of a first down. Payton needed eight yards on the fourth-down desperation pass, but only got seven. Possession of the ball went to the Redskins.

The ballgame was finished. The season was finished. Walter Payton was finished.

The Bears had been eliminated from the NFC playoffs, 21-17, on a cold but sunny Sunday at Soldier Field, and Walter Payton, the man who had run for more yards than any other pro football player ever had, could run no more. Not one more step. Not unless he reconsiders his retirement.

He was a former football player now, and he knew not what to do. He knew not where to go. He didn’t want to leave.

Payton walked from one side of the field, where Wilburn had bumped him out of bounds, to the other side, where his disappointed teammates stood and sat. He made his way to the bench. He plopped down on it.

The Redskins ran out the clock. The game was over, and, one by one, the players left the premises. They ran and walked and limped their way to the locker rooms. And so did their coaches. And so did the officials. And 58,000 fans filed toward the exits. Everybody had someplace to go.

Except Walter Payton.

He stayed on the bench. He sat on a corner of it, all by himself, burying his face in his palms. Two minutes. Five minutes. Close to 10 minutes after the last play, Payton was still sitting there, all alone, staring down at the ground, or up at the stadium’s 63-year-old stone columns.

At long last, the photographers and TV camera operators realized that Payton was still sitting there, reluctant to leave, and came swarming toward him. If he was trying to have a very private moment, he was having it in a very public place.

Before long, dozens of departing Chicago fans looked over their shoulders to see what the commotion was. They, too, saw Payton sitting there, at the scene of so many triumphs, looking so forlorn.

Some of them struck up a “Walter! Walter!” chant, and Walter listened to it for a half-minute or so, until finally he picked himself up, took a deep breath, then walked off the field for the last time.

The locker room was so quiet, you could have heard a tear drop. Coach Mike Ditka said very little. Captain Mike Singletary said he had nothing to say. Quarterback Jim McMahon said, self-accusingly: “Boy, wasn’t I super today?”

Walter Payton, he of the Michael Jackson soprano voice and sensitive demeanor, kept to himself. Gary Haeger, the young equipment manager, took it upon himself to give the 33-year-old running back some breathing room. He parted the sea of reporters.

Everybody was staring at Payton. Payton was staring at his eyelids. He was meditating, thinking, resting, playing possum . . . something . Some thought it emotional. Some thought it theatrical. Whatever it was, it was quite a sight.

Payton finally opened his eyes. He wore a blue cowl, which had kept his head warm, with a white headband around the hood, and he peeled them both away, without a word. He unfastened a “Sweetness, 34,” towel from a belt loop, and set it gently aside.

Reaching down and removing a pair of thigh pads from his uniform pants, Payton passed them delicately to Haeger, and told him in a near-whisper to take care of them. For three years of high school ball, four years of college and 13 years professionally, he had worn these same pads.

He handed them over slowly, almost tenderly, for safekeeping, and a Bear public-relations man suggested they should go straight to the Hall of Fame. Payton just shrugged, said nothing, and continued to undress in slow-motion.

Fullback Calvin Thomas came by and asked what he was doing.

“Just taking my time, taking it all off,” Payton said. “Just enjoying it, I guess.”

“Hey, Walter,” a photographer yelled.

“Thirteen years,” Payton said softly. “Thirteen damn years here and I’m still Walter, not Mr. Payton.”

His face was expressionless. No way to tell for sure if he was kidding, though he probably was.

The crowd kept closing in. Payton, for the most part, kept his back turned. Out of respect for his stature, most everyone waited patiently for him to say a few words.

And waited.

And waited.

The equipment manager eventually nuzzled up to Payton and whispered, “What do all these people want from you?”

“I don’t know,” Payton said. “Maybe they want to see me undress.”

The equipment manager asked the public-relations man to move everybody back. The PR man told everybody Walter would say a few words in a few minutes, outside the locker room, in a tent across the hall.

Walter Payton walked away, to get undressed someplace else.

For 13 years, he had certain obsessions. To be the best. To play with the best. To break the all-time rushing record. To win a championship. To go out in style.

He achieved most of what he set out to do.

With the days winding down to a precious few, Walter Payton wondered how he was generally perceived, and how he would be remembered. He even wondered what his teammates thought of him.

“A lot of times, players get caught up in a fantasy world as to what they’re doing, and then it gets to a point where they think the fantasy world they’re living in is reality,” Payton said, as retirement drew near.

“Then they see a guy like me, and they say, ‘Well, this guy has done everything.’ And they see I’m down to earth . . . that I’m just like any other normal guy . . . that I like to have fun . . . that I like to kid . . . that I can talk to people . . . that I can take jokes.

“I just present myself as I am. Deep down, I think every player wants to be treated the same way.”

He had an obsession to win, and thought for certain that his last team had one more championship to win. About this, he was wrong.

Payton came back to his locker, fully dressed now. Some still could not take their eyes off him.

He sprayed some cologne on himself, as a final touch. A guy standing beside him got a strong whiff.

“Now I know why they call you Sweetness,” the guy said.

Payton smiled.

“What’s the name of that stuff?” the guy had to know.

“‘Obsession,”’ Payton said.

Striding into a cold and crowded tent, the man stepped up, as fitting his place in Chicago society, onto a pedestal.

He looked down upon the crowd and said, “I have a statement to make.

“The last 13 years, for me, have been a lot of fun. There have been a lot of good moments, and a lot of bad moments. But, the one thing over all else is, it has been a lot of fun.

“When you take away the fun, it’s time to leave. That’s why it’s so hard for me right now.

“Because it’s still fun.”

Walter Payton spun. He made a move. He veered left. He cut back to his right. He found an opening.

He was gone.