This week’s Throwback Thursday featured story was an easy one to pick, once I saw that the Chicago Bears and San Francisco 49ers were scheduled to meet. That matchup immediately brought me back to a game etched in the memory of any NFL fan who followed the game in the 1960s. It happened on a muddy field, on December 12, 1965, at Wrigley Field in Chicago, where the Bears played their home games at that time. The Bears had three first round draft picks in the college draft of 1965, and two of their choices, linebacker Dick Butkus and halfback Gale Sayers, were destined to become Hall of Famers. On this particular day, Sayers put an exclamation point on a sensational, record-breaking rookie season, scoring six touchdowns to lead his team to a 61-20 rout of the 49ers. My apologies to the San Francisco franchise, since I’ve now started this year’s “Throwback Thursday” posts by featuring two of the most crushing losses in the team’s history, but this game was memorable. Sayers was spectacular, scoring four rushing TDs, from 1, 7, 21 and 50 yards out, on an 80 yard pass from quarterback Rudy Bukich, and also on an 85 yard punt return. His record-breaking day overshadowed a terrific performance by Bukich, who threw for 347 yards (a huge single-game amount in the NFL of the 1960s) and three TDs on only 16 completions. Sayers would end the 1965 season with an NFL rookie record 22 touchdowns, and although knee injuries shortened his brilliant career, he still managed to do enough in the six seasons he played to become the youngest player ever inducted into Canton when he was voted in, in his first year of eligibility in 1977. Having played his college ball at Kansas, Sayers would come to be known, as his career progressed, as the “Kansas Comet”, a moniker that described his speed and ability to elude defenders, but having only played full time for a little under five seasons, it might also be fitting to say that, like a comet, he flashed across the NFL landscape for a short period, yet his likes will never be seen again.
Bears RB Gale Sayers torments the 49er defense