Monsters: The 1985 Chicago Bears and the Wild Heart of Football by Rich Cohen

by Rich Cohen

The 1985 Chicago Bears and the Wild Heart of Football is the New York Times bestselling gripping account of a once-in-a-lifetime team and their lone Super Bowl season. For Rich Cohen and millions of other fans, the 1985 Chicago Bears were more than a football they were the greatest football team ever—a gang of colorful nuts, dancing and pounding their way to victory. They won a Super Bowl and saved a city. It was not just that the Monsters of the Midway won, but how they did it. On offense, there was high-stepping running back Walter Payton and Punky QB Jim McMahon, who had a knack for pissing off Coach Mike Ditka as he made his way to the end zone. On defense, there was the 46: a revolutionary, quarterback-concussing scheme cooked up by Buddy Ryan and ruthlessly implemented by Hall of Famers such as Dan "Danimal" Hampton and "Samurai" Mike Singletary. On the sidelines, in the locker rooms, and in bars, there was the never-ending soap the coach and the quarterback bickering on TV, Ditka and Ryan nearly coming to blows in the Orange Bowl, the players recording the "Super Bowl Shuffle" video the morning after the season's only loss. Cohen tracked down the coaches and players from this iconic team and asked them everything he has always wanted to What's it like to win? What's it like to lose? Do you really hate the guys on the other side? Were you ever scared? What do you think as you lie broken on the field? How do you go on after you have lived your dream but life has not ended? The result is The 1985 Chicago Bears and the Wild Heart of Football, a portrait not merely of a team but of a city and a its history, its future, its fallen men, its immortal heroes. But mostly it's about being a fan—about loving too much. This is a book about America at its most nonsensical, delirious, and joyful.

Genres: Sports, Football, Nonfiction, History, Audiobook, Biography, American

Hardcover

First published October 29, 2013

About the author

RICH COHEN is the author of Sweet and Low (FSG, 2006), Tough Jews, The Avengers, The Record Men, and the memoir Lake Effect. His work has appeared in many major publications, and he is a contributing editor at Rolling Stone. He lives with his family in Connecticut.

For more information, please see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rich_Coh...

Reviews

[Steve · Rating 4 out of 5]

I’m tempted to trot out the old cliché when talking about certain better sports books: “…and you don’t have to be a fan to like it.” But then I ask myself if it’s fair for me to say since I am a Bears fan, and of a vintage to remember the Monsters of the Midway in ’85 when they were one of the most dominant teams of all time. My own predisposition doesn’t stop me from guessing who will and will not enjoy this book, though.

Group 1: Bears fans of any age; NFL fans in general who remember the days before fantasy leagues; anyone who can name more than 3 players doing the Super Bowl Shuffle – A must read

Group 2: Leadership gurus interested in the coaching techniques of Mike Ditka and Buddy Ryan; medical researchers studying Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy (CTE); sociologists interested in the citywide bonding in Chicago that year among blacks, whites, rich, poor, urbanites, suburbanites, brat eaters and those who prefer polish sausages instead – You’ll probably like it, too

Group 3: Haters who wear cheese wedges as hats and can’t handle even a whiff of Bears hagiography; Jains sensitive to violence against cows as they’re milked and root vegetables as they’re pulled from the ground; smart-arsed Brits who make fun of any ball that’s not round; Chicagoans during that glorious fall who looked forward to game days for crowd-free shopping at the malls – Maybe not so much

Naturally enough, Rich Cohen was a Group 1 guy. He was a skinny kid from the suburbs at the time, but he was caught up in the excitement as much as any die-hard, burly superfan. His idol was the punky QB, Jim McMahon, who thumbed his nose at the establishment (and even Ditka), but was a born leader. Cohen wrote the book partly as an excuse to talk to the heroes of his youth.

After a brief introduction highlighting the phenomenal success of the ’85 team and their thumping of the Patriots in the Super Bowl, Cohen backed up to the earliest days of the professional leagues. Back then, the college game was by far the more popular of the two. Pro teams were often little more than outlets for factory workers. In fact, the Bears began as the Decatur Staleys (Staley being a food starch manufacturer). As fate would have it, they had recruited the visionary George Halas, who had been a successful college player himself, to run the team. He soon moved them to Chicago, recruited some known college stars, and knew to suggest the only name-brand presence among them as the first commissioner of the league – Jim Thorpe.

Halas’s team came to represent the scrappiness of the city itself, endowed with plenty of the old “zipperoo” (as we were reminded too many times). Once he recruited the smart and athletically gifted Sid Luckman to revolutionize the offense with passing, the Bears began tormenting the rest of the league. Things were up and down for the Bears after that era, though, and by the time Halas hired his former tight end, the surly but influential Mike Ditka, to coach the team, they were pretty mediocre. They were building a hard-nosed defense, though, and the assistant coach responsible for it, Buddy Ryan, was kept on as a kind of co-head of the team. This autonomy created a rift between the two domineering coaches that was often unfriendly in the extreme.

You can guess the rest. A nail-hard cast of characters joined the team, a take-no-prisoners-especially-opposing-QBs approach to the game prevailed, and the talented Walter Payton, who used to be their only weapon, finally had a supporting cast. One player who was regrettably not still around for the best Bears days was safety Doug Plank, the guy whose number was used as the moniker for the famous 46 defense. Plank was a nut case who confessed in an interview that his entire career would be a penalty in today’s game. The collisions took their toll, though. He hid smelling salts in his uniform to self-administer when necessary. After some hits he’d have to look down at his uniform to see what color it was so he’d know which huddle to go to for the next play. Also, he said, when they ask, “How many fingers?” the answer is always two.

Cohen profiled quite a few players. Yale educated Gary Fencik was one he was especially excited to talk to since he was an odd combination of smart, urbane, normal-sized and self-sacrificingly brutal. And of course, many people remember the big gap-toothed fella from South Carolina, William “The Refrigerator” Perry. McMahon was an interesting interview, too. The hard-partying iconoclast spent much of his career injured and in pain, but said he’d do it again in a heartbeat. Worship from the legions is like that, I guess.

The pinnacle year itself, 1985, and the Super Bowl of ’86, got less of a blow-by-blow description than I would have thought. Cohen did spend a fair amount of time on the one loss of the year against Don Shula’s Dolphins, a team motivated to maintain its record as the only one to have won every game of the regular season and the Super Bowl. Blitzing Bears defenders couldn’t quite reach Marino, and his vaunted quick-release passes to the exposed areas of the field won the day. Ditka admitted he was outcoached, though it was Ryan’s refusal to adjust the defense until late in the game that was thought to be the key. After the loss, the Bears were never threatened again. They won their post-season games, including the Super Bowl itself, by a combined score of 91-10, the first two being shut-outs. The Patriots’ QB had fear in his eyes for good reason. Of the 21 plays New England ran in the first half, only 4 went for positive yardage. The backup QB in the second half didn’t fare much better. The only cloud as far as the Bears were concerned hung over Walter Payton who felt cheated for not scoring a TD. In what would have been Payton’s best chance, with the Bears lined up near the goal, they gave the ball to the 300+ pound Fridge instead as a kind of novelty act.

As much as Cohen is a fan of the game, he did not turn a blind eye to the damage that many of the players have suffered. CTE is a terrible thing and gets progressively worse after playing days are over. He says he looks at the highlight films of the most vicious hits differently now, especially when they turn out to be career-threatening. Ryan exhorting his team to open another can of quarterback doesn’t seem as sporting when a lifetime of pain may result. I’m wrestling with my own justifications for having been a fan at that time. Ignorance of the longer term impact is my only defense.

Another interesting aspect of Cohen’s postmortem was to ask how such a spectacularly great team won only one Super Bowl. A combination of factors contributed, it seems. Injuries were part of it (McMahon’s especially), personnel changes played a role, as did the rest of the league’s adjustments to counter the Bears’ attacking defense. The overall tone of the book, though, was that it sure was fun while it lasted. Cohen’s enthusiasm was contagious. I recommend it to all of Group 1 and to at least some of Group 2.

[Ian Allan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Pretty ordinary. Author has read most of the (many) other books about the Bears, interviewed some of the former players and put together a collection of stories that are mostly well known. He also interviews many of the members of the 1985 team, but it's more of a compilation than a presentation of new material. Then he mixes in his own recollections as a fan -- a 17-year-old who went to New Orleans for that Super Bowl.

The book is advertised as being mostly about the 1985 Bears, but about the first half of the book is spent on the years leading up to that season. There's a re-telling of the history of George Halas and the formation of the team. There are sections on the '20s, '30s, '40s, '50s, '60s and '70s. Mike Ditka, Buddy Ryan, Jim McMahon and others get their own chapters -- talking not about 1985 but their careers in general. There's commentary on the goings-on in Chicago during all of those decades.

I listened to the first hour or so of this book and almost quit on it. It's not special. It's not breaking a lot of new ground. But it's not annoyingly bad, and it settles into a decent listen. Workmanlike. Some will very much enjoy it -- younger readers, perhaps, or die-hard fans who simply can't get enough of anything Chicago.

One factual error that I noticed. There was mention of the Eagles going 4-10 after giving Michael Vick a $100 million contract. Not true. Philadelphia went 8-8 and 4-12 in the two seasons after Vick signed his deal, and he was 7-6 and 3-7 as a starter in those seasons. Not sure where the 4-10 came from.

[Louis · Rating 4 out of 5]

One of the better books I've read on the NFL, marred only by the writer's need to insert himself into the story a bit too often. This is somewhat understandable; after all, a long-suffering Chicago sports fan has every right to remember the 1985 Bears. This team not only won the Super Bowl but also created a juggernaut based on the 46 defense and a punishing running attack. Visiting with many of the surviving coaches and team members to see how the years have changed them and shaped their memories of the greatest moment in their pro careers is an excellent idea for a book. When Cohen focuses on the Bears the book is a winner. When he tries to get a middle-aged Jim McMahon to throw a football or treats us to an extended recap of his Super Bowl experience in New Orleans, I find he adds nothing to this tale. The tale told by Doug Plank, the hard-hitting defensive back, of his reunion with a former wide receiver whose career he ended, will stay with you whenever you watch a game and wonder what it takes to play such a violent sport.

[Ian Casey · Rating 2 out of 5]

Rich Cohen's Monsters is a book that makes some strange choices in structure and focus, such that its content isn't adequately indicated either by its full title or inside cover blurb. In fact, the narrative doesn't so much flow as teleport erratically.

We start with the standard kind of introduction of the author's walked-uphill-both-ways-in-the-snow true fan credentials, then a jumbled assortment of anecdotes about writing the book and meeting players and such for interviews, plus ramblings about their spirit and style of play and what made the sport what it was in those days or somesuch.

Even at this stage it feels less focused than I'd like and woefully in need of a good editor, but after that Cohen doesn't talk about the 1985 Chicago Bears until quite literally halfway through the book. And when he does, he brushes aside the first third of the season in a sentence or two as though it didn't matter. No, I'm not kidding.

In between times we get a patchy history of the Bears' franchise, a sort of biography of George Halas liberally interspersed with one of Jim Thorpe, bits and pieces about the foundation of the NFL, an entire chapter-long essay on the nature of the quarterback position, and another of heartfelt nostalgia for Chicago in the 70s. I presume this is what Cohen means by 'the wild heart of football' in the subtitle but I've seen rivers of Lego blocks that flow better than this narrative.

The prose really rubs me the wrong way. It's frequently purple and stuffed with so many attempts at colourful metaphors and similes that it grew tiresome fast. Perhaps this sort of bludgeoning bombast is entirely appropriate to the spirit of the team, the sport, and a Chicago native, but as someone looking from the outside in I'd prefer some hint of subtlety to the prose. It would have been nice to see a few paragraphs in a row simply describing what happened without the forced verbal gymnastics.

The choice of images is almost as perplexing. Sometimes they're relevant to the point in the text, but at others they seem to be an image of a Bears player or coach Ditka from several seasons later which may as well have been picked completely at random.

All of which is a pity, because when we do finally, mercifully, actually talk about the 1985 Chicago Bears season, it has a few chapters of decently informative content. Then it's over all too quickly. The subsequent breakdown of contributing factors to the inevitable question of why one of the most dominant teams in pro sports history never won another title is also a strength of the book.

In all, though, this is not the book I wanted it to be, nor is it the book it could have been with a firm but fair editor.

[Nooilforpacifists · Rating 4 out of 5]

The negatives in other reviews are: Author Rich Cohen inserts himself into his own story too often; the tale bogs down in prosaic nostalgia, rather than personality-driven narrative. I can see how some might think that.

But only if you’re from Chicagoland. If not, Cohen’s thread about his trip (as a twenty year-old fan) to the Bears 1986 Super Bowl victory is interesting: A charter flight where everyone else on board wore blue and gold sweaters and a Ditka Bear mustache. His pinpointing where each of the Bears lived on the clock-dial with McCormick Place at the center. His naive drive through Western Pennsylvania, the place where football stars once grew on trees: Unitas, Dikta, Namath, Montana, Marino. There is little rationale for this concentration of talent, save “Holy F—I cannot [coal mine] [work in the factory] [sell insurance] like my father did.

There was something likable about the 1985-86 Bears, even if you hated Chicago and/or the NFC North. They were goofy, especially Jim McMann, the quarterback with the headbands. They had Buddy Ryan’s 46 defense, whose object it was to maim, with the secondary objective of winning. That wasn’t so fun, especially for Redskins fans.

Cohen looks equally at football history, easier to do with a team founded by the founder of the NFC, George Hallas. Especially after Cohen himself has a family, he’s sufficiently perceptive to wonder whether football still is good for us:


“Football is violent by design. It became a sensation because of television but also because it expressed certain truths about American life: the danger of the mines and mills; dirt, struggle, blood, grime; the division of labor; the all-importance of the clock. Football was not a reprieve from working life, it was that life translated into another language.”


Reviewing other sports books, I often bemoan the “Moneyball Effect,” where every writer tries to sounds as cute and pompous as Michael Lewis. It can’t be done, of course: there’s only one Princeton snot, and Moneyball never will be bested. But taken on its own merits, this book isn’t bad. At least if you’re from outside Chicago.

[Shawn · Rating 5 out of 5]

Nearly perfect. I loved this book from beginning to end. The prehistory of the NFL was fascinating, and the snapshots of previous Bear eras leading up to 1985 were evocative. At first I thought it was a strange choice to start with Doug Plank, who had been gone for a couple of years by the Super Bowl season, but as the original inspiration for the 46 defense, it ended up making perfect sense, and Plank's insights throughout are always interesting. Unlike some readers, I really enjoyed the author's overt presence throughout the book. I'm a few years younger than Cohen, but his narrative effectively captured so many of my own emotions, then and now, from the absolute elation we felt as fans almost 100% of the time from roughly mid-October 1985 through January 1986 (Miami game excepted) to the contradictory feelings you have now watching footage of some of those amazing hits that you so loved to see back in the day and knowing the physical effect it's had on the players. There's a lot of poignancy here, but also a lot of good humor. Cohen can be funny, and I laughed aloud quite a few times as I read, not just at the anecdotes, but at his asides. And happily, there were some new stories I hadn't previously heard, even as someone who has hungrily consumed every book that's been written about this team. Overall, just such an enjoyable book that's part NFL and Bears history, part personal memoir, part celebration of the 85 team, and part requiem. I loved it all.

[Scott · Rating 5 out of 5]

For fans of sports, history, and/or Americana - an examination of the team's founding, its place in NFL history, and with special focus on the '85 Superbowl veterans.

[Steven Dunczyk · Rating 5 out of 5]

One fall day, this book was located at a free book exchange stand on the rail trail in New Freedom, Pennsylvania. Confused to why a book detailing the history of the Chicago bears was in PA, I quickly snagged this book to lend to my grandfather.

My grandfather was a Chicago native, speaks fondly of the ‘85 season, and has been supportive of the Bears majority of his life. He has always been an avid reader, bragging to a young impressionable Steven about the importance of reading. My fondest memories as a kid were phone calls discussing the Eagles, the Bears and books I was reading.

Unfortunately now, my grandfather health has limited his ability to read like he used to. This book gave me the platform to spark discussion and memories of his favorite team, players, and own football experiences.

Thank you to Rich Cohen for a detailed history of my grandfathers favorite sports franchise and team. Thank you to the random act of kindness from a Bears fan in PA.

[Steven Peterson · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is an interesting book--with the Bears' 1985 season and its key players and coaches at the center of the book. Sometimes, Cohen's own life gets in the way of his narrative, but not so much as to detract from that narrative.

There are several cross-cutting elements to this book. Historical: (a) the history of the Chicago Bears and the role of George Halas, legendary coach and owner; (b) the slide of the Bears after their 1963 championship; (c) the rebuilding of the Bears in the early 1980s; (d) the championship season culminating in the Super Bowl championship; (e) what came after and why the Bears did not develop a "dynasty" (overused term, but perhaps applicable here).

Actors: mini-portraits of key Bears over time, from Halas to Red Grange to the T-formation and Sid Luckman, the Bears of the early 1960s (Mike Ditka et al.). Dick Butkus and Gale Sayers get a few pages. Then, we get a taste of the "Super Bowl shuffle" team. Walter Payton, excelling with a decidedly mediocre team, despairing of ever tasting winning. The drafting of players who would be key later on--Dan Hampton, Mike Singletary, Steve McMichael, and so on--and Jim McMahon, the charismatic and quirky quarterback who was willing to blow Coach Ditka off. The catayzing coaches--Buddy Ryan, the defensive coordinator and inventor of the madhouse 46 defense; Head Coach Mike Ditka, fiery, sometimes overbearing, sometimes out of control. The 46? Interviews with Gary Fencik and Doug Plank (number 46 himself--gone from the team by 1985). Other Bears? William "Refrigerator" Perry.

The 1985 season unfolds from game to game, including the painful loss to Miami. The glory of victory in the Super Bowl, and the subsequent slow decline of the team. Poignant moments include what has happened to players such as McMahon (memory loss).

A fine examination of the 1985 Bears--and the context in which they came about.

[Joyce]

My fellow Bears fans have always demonstrated bizarrely high self-esteem, considering that their team is usually an also-ran at best. This book helped me understand how a single moment of indelible glory can fix the self-image of a team and fanbase for years.

Actually a good chunk of the story deals with the early years of the Bears and thus of the NFL itself. Younger fans who know little of George Halas, Sid Luckman, and Mike Ditka the player will find much to learn. The author, a Chicagoland native, is at his funniest when recounting the misadventures of his younger Ferris-Bueller-ish self at Super Bowl XX in New Orleans. I also much enjoyed his interviews with the great Bears hitters like Doug Plank and Gary Fencik, as well as their hittees -- many of whom basically still don't want to talk about it!

The great lacuna of the book concerns Walter Payton, a notoriously difficult figure to write about even now and obviously not available for an interview. Cohen treats the great running back with the kid-gloves reserved only for nature's ineffable masterpieces... which is very respectful and all, but won't help those who never saw Sweetness play understand the reverence with which he is still regarded by football people. Perhaps in the end, like a ballet dancer or a racehorse, Walter Payton is best understood in the medium of video rather than words -- but a book about the 1985 Bears that barely mentions him is obviously fatally flawed.

[Brett Van Gaasbeek · Rating 5 out of 5]

As a Bears fan who was too young to appreciate the '85 Bears in their time, I really appreciated this book. Cohen writes with a narrative pace and doesn't get bogged down in the statistics and details that so many sports books tend to. He even avoids the "play-by-play" cadence of the games that many authors tend to lean on in telling the story of a season. Instead, he focuses on the stories of the players and coaches that made the season possible. He doesn't dwell on McMahon, Payton or Singletary either, which is a refreshing change of pace. He tells the story of many of the other players through exhaustive interviews and snippets from their own autobiographies. It was a human look at an inhuman team. Cohen also really excels at telling the possibilities of why the franchise only won the one Super Bowl, refusing to pin blame on one thing or person, which is a fair assessment of any situation like this, as the downfall really is more complex and deserves a more in-depth look rather than a "blame game" treatment. This book is perfect for any Bears fan or for anyone interested in the history of a storied NFL franchise. While Cohen is a die-hard fan, he doesn't write like one nor does he allow for his emotions or fandom to cloud his views on the team, personnel and coaches that made the 1985 Bears special.

[Sennen Rose · Rating 4 out of 5]

I think the thing with following a sports team or loving any sport really is that there are people who get it and people that don’t. I started going to Arsenal matches when I was four, and my dad used to sing me to sleep with the old Irish folk songs they sing on the North Bank which is to say - I am one of the people who get it. Sometimes when Arsenal lose I am so miserable I frighten myself. I am a big believer in the power of sports, and how useful sports can be to understand a time, a place, a people. And Cohen gets it! This was an enjoyable and interesting read for me, and I am going to absolutely sink my teeth into Cohen’s book about the Cubs. Go Bears!

[Bill · Rating 4 out of 5]

A really informative and enjoyable books about what may be the best NFL team in history. Having lived through the frustration of being a Bears fan both before and after 1985 it was great to read about the phenomenal men who made up that time. Frankly I think the entire team should be inducted into the NFL Hall of Fame. I think 4 are already in, but how can the others be excluded.

There were some painful nuggets along the way, especially about Walter Payton and Dave Duerson, but nothing can subtract from the joy and wonder of that single year. Highly recommended for any American football fan.

[Michael Ranalletta · Rating 5 out of 5]

Finally back on the reading wagon! Perfect book for a lifelong bears fan. Even though I was 3 in ‘85, I caught the tail end of the Ditka era in my fandom. Very well written and a great history of both football and the bears!

[Brian · Rating 3 out of 5]

If you’re a Bears fan, this is a must read. Otherwise, an excellent history of the NFL and some player stories that give the reader some insight into the grind of professional football players before the multi million dollar contracts.

[Briley · Rating 5 out of 5]

I learned so much more about the history of the game of football, why history shaped the game and a little bit about my very first Super Bowl.

[Karl · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is for Chicago Bears fans.

[Marlene · Rating 5 out of 5]

Originally published at Reading Reality

That I loved this book probably says as much about me as it does about the book.

These monsters aren’t the kind of monsters I usually read about, and this isn’t the type of book I usually review, but like the author, I, too was young in 1985 in Chicago when the Bears played that iconic, marvelous season. In 1985 I was in my mid-20s, about the same age as most of the players on the team, and early in my own career. When I look back at the Bears’ championship season, I see their youthful exuberance, but after reading Rich Cohen’s book, I know that one of the reasons that the season shines so brightly in my memories is because it reflects a bit of my own bright, shiny dreams.

Chicago loved them because they were us. You could walk into any public place in Chicago in the fall and winter of 1985 and say “How about them Bears?” and start a conversation with a complete stranger, no matter how far apart you were in age, race, class or possibly even language--unless the Bears were actually playing at that moment. If there was a game on, the entire city was watching. Those three hours every Sunday were a great time to go shopping--if you could stand to miss the game. And most of us couldn’t.

About the book...Cohen does deliver a more than readable account of the history of the Chicago Bears from the NFL’s grubby inception in a Hupmobile showroom in Canton Ohio all the way to the 1985 glory season, going from “Papa Bear” Halas to Mike Ditka to Doug Plank to Jim McMahon.

For a fan, it starts out as a story of larger than life personalities, and moves through a familiar history lesson. Then it lays out the marvelous building blocks of just how the Bears became the team that we all knew and loved.

But while it tells that story well, a lot of other books have gone over that field. After the 1985 season, it seemed like nearly every member of the team wrote a book. Sometimes two.

The special gift, and curse, of Monsters is that this book keeps going. Unlike a fairy tale, Cohen tells us what happened after “they lived happily ever after”. Because they didn’t. The 1985 Chicago Bears didn’t just win, they dominated. But after you’ve achieved it all, what do you do next?

Now we know that playing the game takes even more of a toll than anyone suspected at the time. We might as well hang a sign outside the stadium, like the Roman gladiator contests, “those who are about to die salute us”. The cost, CTE (chronic traumatic encephalopathy), appears to be the same, just slower.

We, all of us in Chicago that year, loved watching them play. Seeing the game from a TV screen, listening to, and watching, the Super Bowl Shuffle, it looked like they were having enough fun to last a lifetime, both theirs and ours. Maybe even in spite of the cost. In an interview, the author asked Jim McMahon if it had all been worth it.

“Knowing what we know, about the injuries and the brain and CTE?”
He [McMahon] smiled and said, “I’d do it all again in a heartbeat.”

And we’d all watch. The question the author asks is whether or not we should.

Reality Rating A: Monsters isn’t just a football history, although it certainly is that. For those of us who lived through the Bears’ Super Bowl season, it’s a trip down memory lane, but that’s not all it is either. I’ve tried more than once to explain to someone what made the Bears not just awesome that year, but special, and I’ve never been able to capture the essence. That’s part of what Monsters does.

In between the history and strategy lesson, it builds up the Bears team and shows why they were not just great, but why they were so damn much fun to watch. And then tells the story of why it all went smash. They did not live happily ever after.

Every dog, and Bear, had their day, but they did not go gentle into that good night. Unfortunately, they are going just the same, and we do know why. Has anyone else noticed that players from the very early eras of the game live longer and seemingly healthier than the more recent players? Has the game with its heavier, high-tech equipment become even more damaging, or is it just my imagination?

Football, as a sport to watch, has stopped being fun for me in the years since the Bears lost this group of misfits. Rich Cohen reminded me why they were great.

[Bob O'G · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is probably my favorite book written about professional football. It doesn't hurt that it is about the greatest NFL team of all time. Rich Cohen is a gifted writer with a knack for descriptions. He was a fan of the Chicago Bears much before their prime. In "Monsters," he goes into just enough detail of how the Bears got their start, the life of George Halas, and the ways and the whys true fans stick with a team through decades of misery. I enjoyed the way he weaves the threads of the past through the narratives of the present. What I was also amazed at was how many true characters there were on the 1985 Bears team. Crazy, criminal, samurai, innovative, hall of fame, napoleon, sweetness, (and rappers.) Nothing in the present day of the NFL even comes close to this bunch of guys. There are certainly characters, but nothing like this collection of talented misfits: guys who speed up before the collision, guys who stand at the 50 yard line eyeing the "wounded gazelles," and guys who played for minimum rates for no other reason than they loved the game. All of this is captured perfectly in Cohen's book. A book for any sports fan.
Great quote regarding how Jim McMahon walked the field barefoot before a particular game. Cohen relates it to the way Cheyenne Indian Chief Two Moons did the same thing on the field of battle before he defeated General Custer. Asked how long it took Two Moons to defeat the Seventh Cavalry he said, "As long as it takes a hungry man to eat his dinner." A true warrior. So matter of fact.

[Andrew · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5 stars. Rich Cohen's Monsters is a bit of a mishmash. The book is primarily a rehashing of the history of the Chicago Bears and the '85 Super Bowl season in particular, but Cohen tries to weave in a lament about aging that makes it more than the standard sports season recap. Parts of the book also read like a memoir but the personal stories are so few and far between that Cohen probably would have been better off excising them altogether. Monsters certainly could have used a bit more refining to focus the story and themes. Instead, Cohen seemed to throw all of his thoughts related to football and the Bears into the same book, which made for an uneven read.

Simply by pulling so many great anecdotes together in one place, Monsters is an enjoyable read for a Bears fan. The McMahon stories are some of the best and reminded me why I loved him so much as a kid (or more likely why my older brothers loved him and I hopped on the bandwagon). And even though it creates some dissonance with the prior 200 pages in which Cohen repeatedly romanticizes the violence of football and the '85 Bears defense, the best part of the book is the last few chapters - the Bears players' post-glory days and Cohen's rumination about breaking down and the impossibility of recapturing the glory of one's youth, on or off of the football field.

Recommended for fans of the 46 defense, Ditka and Jimmy Mac.

[Emily · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars, primarily due to structural issues.

Josh Lyman once asked, “Do you think you have to be crazy to create something beautiful?” Well, Josh, if we look to the ‘85 Bears as a case study, the answer is an unequivocal yes. Every person affiliated with the Super Bowl XX champs was out of their mind. From Jim McMahon to Mike Ditka to Buddy Ryan to every defensive lineman and locker room staffer in between, these people were nuts. And this book does an excellent job of capturing that through the eyes of one of these self-diagnosed lunatics, a diehard fan who was blessed (cursed?) to have lived through the entire thing, and who was inevitably defined by it.

If you’ve ever loved a sport, a team, a player, a coach, a city, this book is a passionate (and oh yes so oftentimes unrequited) love letter that will resonate beyond the page.

“I think sports have gone over the top in this country, have ascended into the stratosphere of things that really matter. Pinocchio has become a boy; the shark has entered the lagoon. Your team is a nation and on game day your nation is at war.” That’s straight poetry from the author, a man who grew up in Chicago “where he died with the Cubs and was reborn with the Bears.” Mmmhmm. Buckle up.

[Dave Main · Rating 1 out of 5]

This was a big disappointment. I had read excerpts in magazines before its publication, but much of the book was just a recantation of stories told before.

Plus, there were some really bothersome quibbles:
1) Many of the football diagrams in the book were incorrect, or showed illegal formations.
2) Cohen centers the book about his adoration of Mike Ditka, but in reading the book you come to conclude he was only a small part of the Bears stunning success that year. Ryan's defense made that team what it was. And many of the tales in the book revealed that the offense operated best when McMahon ignored Ditka's playcalling. AND Ditka's handling of players was a key reason of why the team couldn't repeat the success of 1985.
3) Finally, there were small pointers to things that would have made the book far more interesting. LIKE, a throwaway line about Payton's last days in which it was revealed that Payton and Singeltary hadn't liked one another. Really? Never heard that before. THAT would have been interesting to probe EARLIER in the book.

[Brian · Rating 2 out of 5]

Rich Cohen's love letter to the '85 Bears combines the worst elements of memoir (straining to draw the Grand Conclusion about an era coinciding with one's own coming of age) and amateurish sportswriting (semi-critical hero worship). Cohen knows his football, but rarely exercises that knowledge in what is largely a review of the literature of the still-beloved Super Bowl winners. He repeats cliche (Mike McCaskey: not particularly likeable!) and unsurprising trivia (Halas used naughty words!), tossing in a few revelations to compel readers to complete the book. Cohen's capable of more: a brief, late chapter confronts some of the uncomfortable questions prompted by brain injuries. There are surely better entries in the Super Bowl Shuffle canon.

[David · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is the greatest book ever written for a 40-something Bears fan, and possibly one of the two or three greatest works in the history of the medium. If I could give it six stars I would. I laughed, I cried, I cried some more. Gary Fencick is still my idol, Sweetness was on my wall for the better part of the first two decades of my life, Doug Plank holds a dear place in my heart, Dan Hampton was an awe-inspiring man, not to mention Mike 'Disco', oh my.

1985-86 was possibly the greatest period of my life. Thank you, Chicago Bears.

[Ian · Rating 2 out of 5]

Whilst I love the Chicago Bears to this day I found this book quite difficult to read. I struggled from start to finish with only a few redeeming facts and anecdotes throughout to keep me going. Didn't like the writers style either which made for hard work. I hope anyone choosing to read this enjoys it more than I did.

Perhaps I should stick to fiction which is my normal reading choice. As the say 'you should never meet your heroes' and perhaps I should have left the 1985 Bears in my memory as the greatest single team in NFL history (in my opinion).

[Amanda · Rating 5 out of 5]

I absolutely loved this book. From the very beginning the author had me laughing. I am a huge Bears fan which is why my mom got me this book to read. But even as a huge Bears fan, I learned a great deal from this book. He kept me entertained the whole way through. One of my favorites of the year!

[Jim · Rating 2 out of 5]

I wanted to like this book more than I did, but it's just too fractured. It's neither a comprehensive look at arguably one of the 3 best teams of all time, nor is it looking back on a team through the prism of the author's youth. It's also not a treatise on the perils of football due to head trauma. Cohen tries to do all of these things, but they just don't work out.

[Doug · Rating 2 out of 5]

First half of the book was a history of the Bears, the NFL & Halas, which is plowed ground. It seemed required, at least to make the book long enough to be sold as a book. When the story finally focused on the '85 team it was a blast to read.

[Scott Daniels · Rating 2 out of 5]

Eh.....not as good as I thought. Sweetness is much better and if I had not read that book first, I would have given this book a higher rating.

[Andrew Canfield · Rating 4 out of 5]

Lovers of the National Football League will enjoy journalist Rich Cohen’s Monsters: The 1985 Chicago Bears and the Wild Heart of Football. Identifying as a Bears fan is not a must in order to appreciate what Cohen set out to do in this book, as he brings together plenty of information on the NFL’s heritage while telling the story of a really strong team.

The 1985 Bears were one of the most impenetrable defensive teams in football history. They gave up less than thirteen points per game during the season and only allowed a single touchdown in three postseason games. They were the Super Bowl XX champions (their only Super Bowl win as of 2022) after crushing the New England Patriots 46-10 in the Superdome, but it was the personalities on the coaching staff and roster that inspired Cohen to write the book.

He takes the time to walk readers through a quick history of the NFL’s development in general and the Bears development in particular. George Halas was a key early figure in both the league’s and team’s establishment, and members of his family maintained control of the franchise well into the twenty-first century. Some of the book’s more interesting sections consist of the history of football teams starting out as factory company workers in the Midwest playing the employees of other companies.

The names of the early NFL teams, some of which were derived from the baseball teams already established in town, were a major blast from the past. While the Packers are only the few early teams that kept their initial name, the Canton Bulldogs and Decatur Staleys made up some of the prototype teams from the prototype league in the 1910s and ‘20s.

Jim Thorpe was one of the early well-known players in the sport (his life story is worth a book of its own), and the movement of the league toward more passing as opposed to only rushing was aided by Sid Luckman’s time as Chicago’s quarterback.

But the personalities on the 1985 team take up a lot of Monsters’s focus.

With a signal caller like Jim McMahon behind center and Mike Ditka as head coach, butting of the heads was sure to occur. Walter Payton might have been more of a behind-the-scenes sort of player, but throw in Buddy Ryan as defensive coordinator and the team was at times downright combustible.

George Halas claimed he looked for players who possessed what he called “The Old Ziperoo,” and many players on the 1985 roster had just this. Teams seemed almost scared to line up against defensive players like Wilber Marshall, Doug Plank, and Mike Singletary. A 44-0 thrashing of the Cowboys in Texas Stadium in November featured Dallas quarterback Danny White getting knocked out of the game. Lions quarterback Joe Ferguson was injured during a loss to the Bears that year by what many perceived to be a cheap hit from the defense.

Buddy Ryan named his new style of defense the 46 after safety Doug Plank’s jersey number, and while it ultimately proved effective he frequently clashed with Ditka over their philosophies. McMahon and his head coach were seemingly always at each other’s throats; taking all this into consideration it is impressive to recall the team went 15-1 in the regular season and 3-0 in the postseason.

Their only loss was to the Don Shula-coached Miami Dolphins, a team anxious to ensure they remained the only one at the time to go undefeated. Dan Marino would be one of the few quarterbacks to find success against the 46 defense that season. The Monday morning after this loss in Miami would be when the team film the infamous Bears Super Bowl Shuffle; that this took place following a fairly convincing defeat showed just how confident this team was.

One interesting side note was that the Bears had to wait a half century in order to receive their White House visit. The space shuttle Challenger exploded shortly after their Super Bowl victory in January 1986, leading to a cancellation of the team’s visit to the Reagan White House. With a Bears fan in the Oval Office in 2011, then-president Barack Obama finally invited the 1985 team for an official visit.

This is undeniably a book written by someone with a strong penchant from journalism and love for the sport of football. Cohen demonstrates how the NFL has taken on such an outsized role in society and just how much people come to identify with their favorite teams.

Monsters: The 1985 Chicago Bears and the Wild Heart of Football is a good read for those looking for a story of the NFL's development and how one of the league's best defenses in history pulled off the feat. Having individuals like Mike Ditka and Jim McMahon populate its pages only makes the story line that much more enjoyable to delve into. It is deserving of between three and a half and four stars.

-Andrew Canfield Denver, Colorado