Bears rookie RB scores 6 TD's against the 49ers
It was the rookie season for Dick Butkus and Gale Sayers. When they walked off the field that day they'd hammered the 49ers, 61-20. It was December 12, 1965. Papa Bear Halas was our coach. Sayers, "The Kansas Comet" was only 22 years old. Butkus had just turned 23 years old a few days earlier. We had won our 8th World Championship less than two years prior that day in December. Sayers was pulled out of the game after 3 quarters by Papa Bear. He had 336 total yards of offense that game. He probably could have scored 2 or more TD's if he'd played that last quarter too.
It was a great time to be a Bears fan (I wasn't at that game, back then we watched the games on an old black and white TV my dad was always trying to keep from dying).
It was a game for the ages. It seems like yesterday.
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LINK to one heck of a video of that day.
The sky was gray that day-a dirty, ugly kind of gray. Dismal gray. And rainy, off and on. Drizzle, then downpour. All day. It was mild, especially for December, temperatures in the mid-50s, but so muddy and dingy that you`d almost rather it were snowing. It was the kind of day the psychiatrists say produces a higher rate of suicides.
The San Francisco 49ers were dying a slow death that afternoon in Wrigley Field.
"I was never involved in anything like that before or since," recalls former 49ers defensive tackle Charlie Krueger.
The score was now 54-20. Bears. The 49ers had been slogging around in front of 46,278 Bears fans for almost 3 hours and it was still not over. The Bears were driving for still another touchdown. Time out first, though.
In the 49ers` defensive huddle, Matt Hazeltine was in a rage. His uniform number had long since been obliterated and his face was caked with globs of mud, the brown droplets splashing into his eyes almost every time he moved from the puddles on the sodden field. His teammates were in a loose circle around him, but he was looking over their heads toward the sideline, at the coaches, screaming.
It seems that the 49er braintrust had come up with this plan-a new deal if you will-with, as it turned out, much less effect than the New Deal proposed by the original braintrusters of President Franklin Roosevelt.
"The Bears really didn`t have a passing offense then," recalls 49ers defensive end Clark Miller-even though Bear quarterback Rudy Buckich led the National Football League that year in passing. ``You knew what their strength on offense was. They were going to try to run and, by this game, we knew who was going to be running."
Gale Sayers.
The rookie halfback from Kansas played little in his first game of the season, in which the 49ers walloped the Bears 52-24. But since then, he had scored four touchdowns in a game against Minnesota, ran a kickoff back 96 yards, scored on runs from scrimmage of 55 and 62 yards and on passes of 65 and 70 yards.
"All week the coaches were muttering, `Sayers, Sayers,` recalls Krueger. "So they put in what we called the `Chicago defense.`"
Simply, it was an all-out effort to stop the incredible rookie. Responsibilities were changed on the defensive line and in the secondary. The pass defense was almost forgotten as plans were put in place to have defenders doubling almost every Bear blocker and others filling running openings.
Which was why Hazeltine was so upset. And why 49ers coach Jack Christiansen declined to talk to any writers after the game, uncharacteristically brushing past the media without a word.
The 49ers devoted their game plan to stopping Sayers, and he already had six touchdowns with, what turned out, a chance to score two more.
So there was Hazeltine, with the crowd chanting ``Sayers, Sayers, Sayers,`` drowning out his invective toward the coaching staff:
"Good damn thing we`ve got that `Chicago defense,`" Hazeltine bellowed, his voice lost in the crowd noise, his stare cutting through the helpless coaching staff on the sideline. "Great damn `Chicago defense.`"
About a half-hour later, it was over.
Sayers had tied Ernie Nevers and Dub Jones for the most touchdowns in a game with six. Oddly, both Nevers and Jones had scored their half-dozen against Bears teams. Sayers carried the ball just 9 times from scrimmage for 113 yards, scoring touchdowns on 4 of those carries in addition to 89 yards on 2 pass receptions and 134 yards on punt returns for 336 for the game.
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SPORTS
Gale Sayers: Magic In The Open Field
By Gib Twyman, Kansas City Star and Times | October 8, 1989
I can still see that number, mostly as a blur-still see it zig-zagging like a lightning bolt through clouds of would-be tacklers. The number, 48, just retired by the University of Kansas, was on Gale Sayers` back. He was the greatest broken-field runner football has ever seen. I will give you Jim Brown for all-around running. Walter Payton for piling up all those yards. O.J. Simpson belongs in the same breath. But none has ever matched the open-field ability of Sayers, the two-time All-America at Kansas and five-time unanimous All-Pro selection with the Bears.
