The 1985 Chicago Bears Remain the Greatest...

[JR2004]

Team in NFL history...No ifs, ands or buts about it. They still have the greatest defense I have ever seen in my lifetime. Here's a video for some of the younger folks who may have never seen this...lol.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fJNC3dgreaU&feature=related

And all these years later the Super Bowl Shuffle is still fun to watch and good for a laugh or two. :) Steve Fuller might have the least rhythm of any white guy in recorded history...lol. Some Bears thought this was too cocky to participate in (Dan Hampton declined to take part), but my gosh they backed up their talk. Such a fun team with so many great personalities on it. You've gotta be pretty darn confident and cocky to film this the day after your only loss of the season.

[Txbroadcaster]

greatest D? yes..Greatest team? No

[JR2004]

Originally posted by Txbroadcaster
greatest D? yes..Greatest team? No

Greatest EVER and I know where you're going with this if New England had won. I'm fully aware of Ditka's comments and I also am a 100 percent certain as to why he made them. Had his defensive coordinator been anyone else besides Buddy Ryan you'd have seen him on every sports channel on TV saying his 85 Bears would've beaten New England. Saying his Bears would've beat New England means giving Buddy credit and that's just not going to happen in this lifetime.

There hasn't been a team before or since who was fit to even shine their shoes, much less better than them. The only one even that comes close to them is the early 90's Cowboys.

[Txbroadcaster]

Originally posted by JR2004
Greatest EVER and I know where you're going with this if New England had won. I'm fully aware of Ditka's comments and I also am a 100 percent certain as to why he made them. Had his defensive coordinator been anyone else besides Buddy Ryan you'd have seen him on every sports channel on TV saying his 85 Bears would've beaten New England. Saying his Bears would've beat New England means giving Buddy credit and that's just not going to happen in this lifetime.

There hasn't been a team before or since who was fit to even shine their shoes, much less better than them. The only one even that comes close to them is the early 90's Cowboys.

A..NE has nothing to do with it, Even if NE won I would not say they were the greatest team

B. Bears 85 D was AMAZING..Their offense was not, In fact at times it was down right ugly...Funny how Trent Dilfer is called a "caretaker" for the Ravens because of that D, Well McMahon was to for the Bears.

For me a team to be one of the Greatest has to be great on both sides of the ball, or at least NEAR great on one side and great on the other..Bears 0f 85 were not that..Had the best D, and an average, actually below average O

Teams like the 84 Niners, the 94 Niners, the 92 and 93 Cowboys are teams that fit in the great on one side, and near great on the other side that IMO makes them better

IF I am going to call a team the greatest ever they need to be able to win a 14-10 game AND a 35-31 game agianst great teams

[Phil C]

The Bears that year were a great team and I don't know if anyone today would beat them in a super bowl. They probably would have had a dynasty if Coaches Mike Ditka and Buddy Ryan had stayed together. Together they made a great coaching combination but separate not too good.

[big daddy russ]

Originally posted by Txbroadcaster
B. Bears 85 D was AMAZING..Their offense was not, In fact at times it was down right ugly...Funny how Trent Dilfer is called a "caretaker" for the Ravens because of that D, Well McMahon was to for the Bears.

For me a team to be one of the Greatest has to be great on both sides of the ball, or at least NEAR great on one side and great on the other..Bears 0f 85 were not that..Had the best D, and an average, actually below average O
They had the second-best scoring offense in the league, seventh-best yardage-wise (and their defense and special teams gave them a whole lot of short fields). And McMahon was closer to Mark Rypien than Trent Dilfer.

[Buccaneer]

I saw the Bears beat the Cowboys 44-0 in Dallas. I don't know if I have ever seen a more dominatig performance!

[Phil C]

Originally posted by Buccaneer
I saw the Bears beat the Cowboys 44-0 in Dallas. I don't know if I have ever seen a more dominatig performance!

Yes but it was close for a while there.

[Macarthur]

They are top 3 or 4, but not the best.

The 89 Niners and the 92 or 93 Cowboys would have beaten them.

[Txbroadcaster]

Originally posted by big daddy russ
They had the second-best scoring offense in the league, seventh-best yardage-wise (and their defense and special teams gave them a whole lot of short fields). And McMahon was closer to Mark Rypien than Trent Dilfer.

The year Rypien won the SB he threw 28 TDs and 11 int..Jimmy Mac threw 15 TDs 11 INT

Yes the Bears did have a good ground game..but the 20th ranked passing game in the league

Again..IMO, Bears of 1985...Great D, average O does not equal the greatest OVERALL team

[big daddy russ]

Originally posted by Txbroadcaster
The year Rypien won the SB he threw 28 TDs and 11 int..Jimmy Mac threw 15 TDs 11 INT

Yes the Bears did have a good ground game..but the 20th ranked passing game in the league

Again..IMO, Bears of 1985...Great D, average O does not equal the greatest OVERALL team
The Bears were built on the running game and their stats reflected it. Especially McMahon's, who is a Jason Campbell-type or Troy Aikman-type. Not a game manager, but not someone who's going to put up 250-300 passing yards every week.

Basically, you said this...

Originally posted by Txbroadcaster
Had...an average, actually below average O

...and I was just correcting it.

Also I wasn't saying McMahon was as good as Rypien (who was an MVP-caliber player that year), just saying that he made more key plays for his team than Dilfer ever did. He was much more than a game manager. That team counted on him much more than the Ravens counted on Dilfer. Maybe Aikman would've been a better comparison. They didn't have the stats that the Marinos, Montanas, and Youngs did, but they were invaluable to their teams' success.

[BuffyMars]

NVM

[SpeedOption]

Originally posted by Phil C
Yes but it was close for a while there.
Until the coin toss. Maybe during warm up.

In the next 3 games, the Bears were clearly on a roll. They beat up on Detroit, Dallas, and Atlanta by a combined score of 104-3. The pinnacle was a 44-0 defeat of the Cowboys in Dallas, their worst loss at home ever.

1985 NFL Rankings: Offense 7th Overall, 1st Rush, 20th Pass; Defense 1st Overall, 1st Rush, 3rd Pass.

1985 Chicago Bears Stats

Passing Comp Att Comp % Yds Y/Att TD Int Rating
Jim McMahon 178 313 56.9 2392 7.64 15 11 82.6