December 12, 1965, 60 years ago: The most amazing one-man, one-game performance in NFL history occurs.
On November 28, 1929, the Chicago Cardinals beat the Chicago Bears, 40-6 at Wrigley Field in Chicago. Ernie Nevers of the Cardinals set a single-game record by scoring all 40 points: 6 rushing touchdowns and 4 kicked extra points.
On November 25, 1951, the Cleveland Browns beat the Bears, 42-21 at Cleveland Municipal Stadium. William "Dub" Jones scored 6 touchdowns, 4 rushing and 2 receiving. His son would also become an NFL star, 1970s Baltimore Colt quarterback Bert Jones.
On December 25, 2020, Christmas Day, the New Orleans Saints beat the Minnesota Vikings, 52-33 at the Superdome in New Orleans. Alvin Kamara rushed for 6 touchdowns.
But what Gale Sayers did on December 12, 1965 was even more amazing. Not just because, unlike the others, he was a rookie, but because the weather was miserable.
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Sayers scored 22 touchdowns in 1965, setting an NFL record that stood for 10 years. Think about that: 22 NFL touchdowns at age 22: 14 rushing, 6 receiving, a punt return and a kickoff return. On October 17, against the Minnesota Vikings, he had a rushing touchdown, a receiving touchdown, and a kickoff return for a touchdown in the same game. That would not happen in the NFL again until 2016, when Tyreek Hill did it for the Kansas City Chiefs.
After that October 17, 1965 game, Bears founder-owner-general manager-head coach George "Papa Bear" Halas compared Sayers favorably to old-time Bears Red Grange and George McAfee. As it turned out, the Kansas Comet was just getting warmed up.
This was also the rookie season for Dick Butkus, who would revolutionize the position of middle linebacker, becoming the most ferocious player of his generation.
The Bears had opened the season, and thus Sayers' and Butkus' careers, on September 19 at Kezar Stadium in San Francisco, and lost 52-24. On December 12, the 49ers came to Wrigley Field, and the Bears wanted revenge. I don't think anybody expected it to take this form, though.
Wrigley Field, with football bleachers added
It rained all day, and the field on which Grange and McAfee -- and Bronko Nagurski, and Bill Osmanski, and Willie Galimore -- had run was practically a swamp. How anybody could get any speed on it was a mystery.
On that field, Gale Sayers had 113 rushing yards, 89 receiving yards, and 134 punt return yards. He scored 4 touchdowns rushing, 1 receiving, and 1 on a punt return. He had 326 total yards. He scored 6 touchdowns. Talk about "announcing your presence with authority."
The Bears pounded the 49ers, 61-20. One of the 49ers' receivers that day was Bernie Casey, who went on to become one of the top black actors of the 1970s.
The Bears finished the season at 9-5. With 2,272 all-purpose yards, 1,371 of them rushing, Sayers was an easy choice for NFL Rookie of the Year.
Sadly, injuries would cut Sayers' career short. He retired after the 1971 season, having played only 68 regular-season games -- enough to add up to a shade over 4 full seasons -- and, like Butkus, who hung on for 2 years longer despite his own ravaged knees, never appeared in a Playoff game, because the players from the Bears' 1963 NFL Champions had gotten old, and, except for the all-time greats Sayers and Butkus, there weren't any good players coming up to replace them.
In 1969, the year immortalized in Sayers' book I Am Third, and in the movie based on it, Brian's Song, starring Billy Dee Williams as Sayers and James Caan as ailing running back Brian Piccolo, the Bears went 1-13.
Halas, in his 70s and set in his ways, gave up coaching after the 1967 season, but it would take another decade or so before he turned operational control of the team over to his son, George Halas Jr., known as "Mugs," and Jim Finks. But Mugs died in 1979, of a heart attack, only 54 years old. Since Papa Bear wasn't willing to give control to his daughter, Virginia, he gave it to her husband, "Big Ed" McCaskey, who handed some to their son, Mike McCaskey. This would result in short-term glory, but not enough, and long-term problems.
Sayers was elected to both the College and Pro Football Halls of Fame in 1977. He was 34 years old, the youngest player ever elected to the Pro Football Hall. He became a successful businessman and a college sports administrator. Butkus was elected to the Pro Football Hall in 1979, and the College Football Hall in 1983. He became an actor, especially known for his commercials for Miller Lite Beer, playing on his tough-guy image.
It took until 1994, in a nationally-televised halftime ceremony during a Monday Night Football game on a miserably rainy and cold Halloween Night, for the Bears to formally retire the Number 40 of Gale Sayers and the Number 51 of Dick Butkus. As the Bears were losing to the Green Bay Packers, their arch-rivals, most of the fans stayed long enough to cheer the honorees and boo Mike McCaskey, and then left without watching the 2nd half.
Sayers died in 2020, Butkus in 2023.
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