“I am a fan,” declared Hall of Famer Mike Singletary as he explored exhibits at New York’s NFL Experience Times Square. Asked what teams he follows, he said the uniforms are less important than the level of play: “I watch good games.” And yes, this does often mean checking out the Pats: “I like the fact that they do things right. They’re not the most talented team. They are definitely the best team.” (He declined to give a Super Bowl prediction, but noted this was definitely one he would be watching: “I’ll be there. Should be a great game.”)
Of course, Singletary is more than a fan. He has been an assistant coach for the Ravens, Vikings, and Rams as well as the head coach for the 49ers. During his notorious first game in charge, at halftime, he reportedly announced, “We’re getting our tails whipped out there” and illustrated his frustration by dropping his pants. In what is surely the most wonderful clarification in sports history, a team spokesman later confirmed that he kept up his boxers.
Singletary was always renowned for his intensity. Players dubbed him “Samurai Mike” because he emitted such disturbing noises that “guys said I sounded like a samurai warrior.” As a linebacker for the Chicago Bears, he made 10 Pro Bowls and was twice named NFL Defensive Player of the Year during a Hall of Fame career. Yes, Singletary became a legend in the City of Big Shoulders despite being relatively diminutive himself, with a listed height of 6’0” and playing weight of 230. In person, Singletary seems even tinier than that: closer to Wes Welker than J.J. Watt.
Then again, size only matters so much. As Singletary put it, “I’m not tall but sometimes small things are the most dangerous.” (Happily, he is surprisingly safe this day as he does not take out any of the fans who ask him to pose for photos.)
The pinnacle of Singletary’s career—and for many fans pro football itself—came when his ’85 Bears won the Super Bowl for the first and thus far only time in franchise history. They didn’t just win—they obliterated. The team went 15-1 in the regular season and outscored their three postseason opponents 91-10. (This included a 46-10 victory over the thoroughly humbled Patriots in Super Bowl XX: things were different in the ’80s.) But even that dominance wasn’t the team’s main allure—Singletary said fans tuned in for the “drama.”
“It was a colorful team,” observed Singletary in an understatement for the ages. It started with the mustache in charge, Coach Ditka. “Iron Mike” was a Chicago icon from his playing days, but he had his share of critics. They included his own defensive coordinator, Buddy Ryan. Ryan said of Ditka: “We hardly ever spoke. I’d just put the game plan on his secretary’s desk and she’d put it on his desk. Not that he understood much of it.”
Once the two even started throwing punches at halftime. (Actually, “punches” might be a bit generous, as safety Dave Duerson dismissed it as a “cat fight” that was “kind of sad, really.”)
“[Ditka] and Buddy, that was drama enough,” Singletary observed. But there was so much more. Take quarterback Jim McMahon—he didn’t win any MVPs like Tom Brady, but did Tom Terrific ever make headlines for mooning a helicopter? Or William “Refrigerator” Perry, a 6’2” rookie with a weight that fluctuated between 308 and 370 as he played defensive tackle and occasionally scored touchdowns as a fullback. And for people who just wanted transcendent football, there was running back Walter “Sweetness” Payton. Add it up and you get a team that could not be ignored.
But the true greatness of the Bears came when they not only embraced the drama but harnessed it completely. Typically, there are upsides and downsides to oversized attention. For much of the season, the Bears experienced both. Singletary approvingly noted the team’s flashier stars “took the spotlight off some people,” letting them thrive in relative anonymity.
Yet at times Singletary believed it was simply too much: “Sometimes you just wanted… let’s just play.”
At least, that was his thinking until the Bears took media hype to an unprecedented level with the release of “The Super Bowl Shuffle.”
Wide receiver/track star Willie Gault convinced Singletary to participate: “He knew I would agree to it because it was to help raise money for charity.” (Which is why Payton rapped: “We’re not doin’ this because we’re greedy/ The Bears are doin’ it to feed the needy.”) So in a league where teams endlessly worry about giving opponents bulletin board material, the Bears threw down with a full-on video.
Oh, and it gets crazier. “We did it right after a Monday night game,” Singletary recalled. “We did it the very next day.” As luck would have it, the Bears had lost that game to the Dolphins. It was their first defeat of the season and meant they wouldn’t join Miami as the second franchise to put up an undefeated season.
And in this humbling moment, they needed to perform a ditty about how they were “so bad, you know we’re good/ Blowin’ your mind like we know we would.”
“Needless to say, we didn’t feel excited about doing it,” Singletary said. Yet something odd happened: the team had a great time. Even Samurai Mike. (“I didn’t think I would, but I did.”)
More importantly, it ensured that the Bears didn’t lose their sense of invincibility: “It really brought us back together. Kind of galvanized our focus. Really got us back on track.”
It cannot be understated what a colossal display of chutzpah “The Super Bowl Shuffle” was. This was a song (with a video!) recorded after a defeat when there were still three games left in the regular season: “It was, ‘Oh my goodness.’ Put pressure on us to get it done.”
And as we all know, they got it done. The Bears closed out the regular season with three wins by a combined score of 73-33. Just as the team wouldn’t be denied, “The Shuffle” proved to have appeal well beyond Chicago. While it just missed the Top 40—peaking at #41—it earned a Grammy nomination in the category of “Best Rhythm and Blues Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocal.” (They lost to someone with slightly more musical experience: Prince.)
Yet “The Super Bowl Shuffle” is now also bittersweet. The Bears have experienced losses over the years: Payton, Buddy, and Duerson passed. (Tragically, Duerson committed suicide and was found to have C.T.E.—Duerson’s family suffered another hardship with his portrayal in the movie Concussion, which they insist is a slanderous fiction.) While the video was done with noble intentions, for some players that has been tainted. “Unfortunately the money did not go to charity,” Singletary said. Six former Bears filed a lawsuit in 2014—the only upside to this story is the fact they referred to themselves in the legal filing as the “Shufflin’ Crew.”
Beyond this, Singletary never made it back to the Super Bowl. (He retired in 1992.) He and his teammates also never recorded another song. Ridiculous as it sounds, should they have again done something that dramatic? Did the Bears once more need to put themselves in a position where the options were “complete victory” or “complete humiliation?”
“I don’t think so,” Singletary said. Much like the ’85 Bears themselves, “The Super Bowl Shuffle” was only meant to happen once: “It was the perfect storm. Everything was right for a team like that, the way we did it.” The Shufflin’ Crew may have been a one-hit wonder, but it’s a jam that the NFL will remember forever. Samurai Mike takes the mic at 1:17.
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