Last night I saw a Fathom Events showing of '85: The Greatest Team in Pro Football History, and it was quite the day. I discovered rolled ice cream (plenty of videos are on YouTube describing it) and yet I had a scary incident before I saw the screening, as I explain below:
NOTE: This is not to be confused with the ESPN 30 for 30 episode about the 1985 Chicago Bears. Also, even though this was a Fathom Event, for some reason this did not play near Orlando so I had to drive a ways to see this. On the way, I honked at someone for rude driving, and they suddenly turned psychopathic; that vehicle tried to run me off the road! As soon as it happened, they sped off; I was too shaken up but the road was full of other cars so someone had to call 911 and hopefully I can have the last laugh because of the police pulling over that lunatic. As I've been chased before in Florida, that is the most extreme examples of how terrible people drive in Florida; legit, I can spend paragraphs discussing that subject.
Instead, I watched this, a documentary about 1985 season the Chicago Bears had; for the worldwide audience reading this, that is a pro American football team which had at worst one of the best seasons of all time as they only lost once and had a legendary defense. The team experienced mainstream fame and was white-hot for a brief amount of time as there were plenty of wacky over-the-top Bears players and even the head coach Mike Ditka was outrageous. This was not a game by game recap of the season (other sources have done that before) but rather had many of the most notable people still alive today interviewed and they talked about how great the season was. They also discussed some drama, such as their best player (Walter Payton) never scoring in the Super Bowl game-something that greatly upset him and I know people who are still raw about it 32 years later-some of the players dying too young and how they only had one great year; multiple Super Bowls should have been won with the team but it did not happen.
As I grew up in Illinois, watched the Bears since I was a kid, and have the faintest memories of this season, there you have the reasons for this viewing. I really don't watch the NFL too much anymore; the Bears have been bad for the past few years but it is more than that. I have no idea how worldwide the news spread of the controversy over various players kneeling during The National Anthem... as Trump was the one who fanned the flames, I presume some people in other countries heard about it; I also presume that some found it daffy how many Americans were enraged by this act.
I am not one of those people; there are other reasons to tune out. The league itself has done some very stupid things. There were dumb rule changes that neutered most defenses. Offenses are too conservative in general, making for games not enjoyable to watch. In 2012 the referees went on strike and the league thought it was OK to have replacement refs do the actual games... even if it became obvious they were over their heads and it took them completely screwing up the ending of a big game on national television for the league to cave and the strike to end. Hell, in recent years there have been multiple controversies over what is a catch and what isn't; yes, they can't definitively explain it and just NOW do they promise to try and fix that. So believe me there are plenty of reasons to have an apathetic feeling about the National Football League that has nothing to do with kneeling.
Anyhow... this documentary is best for National Football League fans, especially fans of The Monsters of the Midway.
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