As all die-hard Bears' fans know, Walter Payton was a blessing for the lives of many people. The number 34 is widely used in honor of one special player that changed football as we know it. Any NFL fanatic is aware of how valuable the running back position has the potential to be. Walter Payton wasn't either of those.. The Chicago Bears drafted "Sweetness" in as a fourth overall pick. Chicago greatly needed another running back as they had endured losing seasons after the iconic Gale Sayers retired in Payton needed some time to gradually mature into their dream running back, however.
In his first game, Walter was held to zero net yards on eight rushing attempts. Payton then finished the season on a high note with a yard game on 20 carries against the New Orleans Saints.
Walter Payton ended his rookie season with yards and seven touchdowns. After being motivated to improve his performance the following season, he rushed for over 1, yards and 17 scores on his way to the Pro Bowl where he was named Pro Bowl MVP. In his third season, Payton rushed for 1, yards and 16 touchdowns while earning the league's leading scorer of the season. His most memorable game that season, and quite possibly the highlight of his 13 year career, was on November 20, against the Minnesota Vikings.
In that game, he rushed for a then-record yards on 40 rushes while having a case of the flu. The Bears had problems assembling winning seasons since Payton's arrival, despite his success, prompting Chicago to bring in Mike Ditka, a former tight end for the Bears and Hall of Famer, for the head coaching spot. After Ditka's arrival, Chicago thrived of Payton's 1, yards per season.
Walter led the Bears to a season in and in , but there was much more to come. In , the Jackson State star rushed for over 1, yards and was a high-percentage contributor for the Bears' second ranked offense. On the opposite side of the ball, Chicago's 46 defensive scheme led "Chi-Town" to their first ever Super Bowl and setting a record for points allowed on their way to becoming the best defense ever.
Walter Payton did not have any scores throughout the celebration for Chicago, but attracted more than two defensive players on each snap. In a later interview, after the Super Bowl, Ditka stated that he regrets not getting Walter a score. Payton, who was in his 12th year at the time, banged his way to gathering 1, yards in the season. Chicago won the NFC Central division, as it was labeled at the time, but fell short to the Washington Redskins in the divisional playoffs.
Ending the season, Payton announced that he would retire following the season. In his final year, Payton split carries with Neal Anderson and only earned yards.
Walter Payton's career ended with another loss to the Washington Redskins in the divisional round of the playoffs, losing on January 10th, He had no name, no origin story, and no fundamental logic justifying his existence. Yet viewers seemed to slowly adjust to this new reality like it had always been reality—that a robot doing jumping jacks next to an advertisement for a Ford F between plays was simply the natural course of things.
So, nine months ago, I reached out to Fox Sports—because I needed to know. I would blow this story wide open. Fox always had a bit of a chip on its shoulder as a network. Since its launch in , Fox had wanted an NFL broadcast contract, because it would bring a certain legitimacy to the channel as a broadcaster—not to mention, millions of households tuning into games every week, who might discover other programming they liked on Fox, too.
Within just eight months, Murdoch brought in a man named David Hill to build Fox Sports from nothing. Hill was coming from the U. He had a reputation for shaking things up and embracing gimmicks. In , Hill was accused of sexual misconduct toward a fellow Fox employee in in a case that was settled out of court; he stayed at Fox with no clear repercussions.
He cried and sulked back to the dugout. But Hill was focused on the future, not catering to purists. When Hartley first joined Fox Sports in , the graphics team had been experimenting, here and there, with a techie look, which included a few robots on some animations and brand packages. It was L. We were on a movie lot. And we had no money. Our budgets were low, and CBS was well-funded.
It would be so cool! Following a divorce, he had been traveling back and forth from L. We should do this. But not create another robotic football player. After all, mascots, from Tony the Tiger to Mr. Clean, are well-worn tropes in advertising for a reason. To some extent, Marshall explains, the more random the character is, the better.
After all, you want an ad to be memorable, not normal. In the case of Fox coming in to claim football, a robotic mascot was actually a particularly good fit. The team began sketching more formally what the robot would look like, and Hartley shared much of the early work with his son. It was kind of a cool thing. As 2D sketches transformed into 3D renders, Fox got to the stage where it was ready to animate the robot.
They hired Blur Studios to handle the motion capture for a special effects sequence helmed by cofounder Tim Miller. Miller has since gone on to become a major director with his breakout film Deadpool —and directed the coming Terminator reboot. Hartley remembers the first motion capture sessions clearly, as green-suited actors were asked to perform all sorts of things the robot might do. That included pointing, flexing, and taunting—the sort of machismo gesturing that was championed by a wave of mid-aughts dude-branding seen on contemporaries like SpikeTV.
A boastful, swole bro-bot is just the sort of over-indexing of masculinity that, seen through in a certain light, could have been interpreted as mocking Sunday football itself. They put the robot in costumes. Wrapped him in Christmas lights. Had him throw a snowball. Programmed him to mime. Even put him in a hula skirt. Some motion capture actor had to act out every iteration.
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