Episode 03: 85’ Chicago Bears
The 1985 season was the Chicago Bears' 66th in the National Football League the 16th post-season completed in the NFL, and their fourth under head coach Mike Ditka.
The Bears entered 1985 looking to improve on their 10–6 record from 1984 and advance further than the NFC Championship Game, where they lost to the 15–1 San Francisco 49ers. Not only did the Bears improve on that record, but they also put together one of the greatest seasons in NFL history.
The Bears won fifteen games, as the 49ers had the year before, and won their first twelve before losing to the Miami Dolphins on Monday Night Football to deny a perfect season. The Bears' defense was ranked first in the league and only allowed 198 total points (an average of 12.4 points per game). The Bears won the NFC Central Division by seven games over the second-place Green Bay Packers and earned the NFC's top seed and home-field advantage throughout the playoffs at Soldier Field. In their two playoff games against the New York Giants and Los Angeles Rams, the Bears outscored their opponents 45–0 and became the first team to record back-to-back playoff shutouts. Then, in Super Bowl XX at the Louisiana Superdome against the New England Patriots, the Bears set several more records. First, their 46 points broke the record that had been set by the Los Angeles Raiders in 1984 with 38 and tied by the 49ers the following year. Their 36-point margin of victory topped the 29-point margin of victory that the Raiders had put up in Super Bowl XVIII and stood as a record until the 49ers won Super Bowl XXIV, also in New Orleans, by 45 points over the Denver Broncos. It was the Bears' first NFL World Championship title since 1963.
The 1985 Chicago Bears are one of the few teams to consistently challenge the undefeated 1972 Miami Dolphins for the unofficial title of the greatest NFL team of all time. In 2007, the 1985 Bears were ranked as the second greatest Super Bowl championship team on the NFL Network's documentary series America's Game: The Super Bowl Champions, ranking behind only the 1972 Dolphins. Other sources rate the 1985 Chicago Bears as the greatest NFL team ever.