This year marks the 30th anniversary for the Chicago Bears first and only Super Bowl championship. The Bears lost just one game that year, and the team is widely considered to be one of the best in the history of the NFL. The ragtag group has become as much a part of Chicago culture as Italian beef sandwiches or corrupt politicians. On Thursday night, three days before the Denver Broncos and Carolina Panthers are set to face off in Super Bowl 50, a new ESPN 30 for 30 documentary titled The '85 Bears is set to debut, marking one of the most extensive looks into the infamous team to date.
Narrated by Vince Vaughn (who grew up in suburban Lake Forest), the film breaks down the perfect storm of events that brought the championship group together, and how they went on to have one of the most dominant seasons in the history of American sports. It features interviews with Mike Ditka, Dan Hampton, Steve McMichael, Mike Singletary, William "Refrigerator" Perry, Jim McMahon and other famous members of the team. But the most interesting interviewee in the documentary is Buddy Ryan, the Bears' defensive coordinator and the mastermind behind the team's legendary defense. While people like Ditka and Hampton haven't left the spotlight since entering it during the 1985 season, Ryan has become an afterthought.
There's a notable twinkle in the eyes of the players and coaches as they recount what was likely one of the best years of their lives. Everyone interviewed is now a legend, and they all seem to be very aware of that fact.
The film is a heartfelt retelling of the team's success that could bring any diehard Chicago sports fan to tears, but it falls short of telling the entire story. The way football was played in the NFL during the 1980s (particularly the way the Bears played it) was different from how it's played today, and hundreds of players are now suffering lifelong health issues because of it. In 2014, more than 500 players (Super Bowl champion Bears McMahon, Richard Dent and Keith Van Horne included) filed a class action lawsuit against the NFL, claiming they were given a slew of painkillers and instructed to play through injuries. In 2011, 1985 Bears safety Dave Duerson died of a self-inflicted gunshot to the chest and requested that his brain be sent for research on chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE).
But you wouldn't get the impression from The '85 Bears that lifelong health problems are that big of a deal in the NFL. The film is about 100 minutes long, and it doesn't address the problem of football-related concussions until the last 20 minutes. Even then, the issue is brushed off by players as if it's the cost of doing business.
"I didn't want to make some sort of concussion exposé," the film's director Jason Hehir told Time Out. "I don't think anyone who's going to watch this film is unaware of the concussion issue."
By ignoring the ugliest parts of the 1985 Bears' success, Hehir's documentary comes off as a puff piece—100 minutes of meathead aggrandizement that falls in line with the NFL's noncommittal stance on the matter. The film concludes with more than a dozen players claiming that, even if they knew what health issues they'd experience later in life, they'd still play for the Bears again.
“Football has been so saturated with the downside of the game that I wanted this to be a breath of fresh air to the viewers," Hehir said.
In disregarding that downside, the film reinforces the mindset that millions of football fans across the country will have when they sit down to watch the Super Bowl on Sunday: That big hits, touchdown passes and an exciting game are more important than the tragedies that occur as a result of them. Celebrating a winning team shouldn't mean ignoring the repercussions of triumph—the '85 Bears are no exception.
The '85 Bears will debut on ESPN at 8pm CST on Thursday, February 4.