Steve McMichael, Hall of Fame Tackle for Champion Bears, Dies at 67

Steve McMichael, a defensive Tackle of the Chicago Bears Hall of Fame with a theatrical personality and a fierce intensity that helped anchor what could have been the most predatory defense in the history of the NFL during the 1985 Super Bowl winner season, died Wednesday in Joliet, Ill. He was 67 years old.

The Bears confirmed their death, in hospice care. The team said he had fought for years with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, the degenerative disease of the nervous system most commonly knew as if or Lou Gehrig’s disease.

McMichael played 15 years in the NFL, 13 of them with Chicago and none more raptor than the 1985 season. The Bears lost only once that season while they crawl through the league with the so -called defense 46, orchestrated by the bustling defensive coordinator of the team, Buddy Ryan.

Placing eight defensive players near the scrimmage line, harassed Chicago, surpassed and intimidated intimidated opponents. No victory was more exhaustive than dismantling 44-0 of the Bears of the Dallas Cowboys in their own field on November 17, 1985. It was the defeat of sausages in the then 26 years of history of the team.

That afternoon, McMichael collected one of the 92 ½ career catches that he accumulated with the Bears, placing it secondly in the history of the franchise to his teammate Richard Dent. In the opinion of many, Dallas simply surrendered. Tom Landry, Dallas coach at that time, called for “an outdated country country.”

“I call it the Piranha effect,” said Chicago’s defensive wing Dan Hampton to journalists later. “We began to face someone and we get blood. It seems that we enter a frenzy.”

The only loss of Chicago that season was against the Miami Dolphins. The Bears dominated the New England patriots at the Super Bowl XX, 46-10, played on January 26, 1986 at the Louisiana Superdome in New Orleans.

Thought something small for a defensive liner at 6 feet 2 inches and 270 pounds, McMichael possessed an immense strength and quick speed. He starred in a defense that included three future members of the Hall of Fame: the Hampton and Dent defensive extremes and the supporter Mike Singletary. He played in 191 consecutive games for the Bears and 12 more in the playoffs, a franchise record.

“It was a defensive Tackle bar in double teams and triple equipment and legs of legs and this and that,” Hampton told Chicago tribute for his obitary over McMichael. “Then, essentially challenging physical reality is amazing.”

McMichael delighted in an exaggerated and indomitable person. His nicknames included Ming The Mercilos, after the tyrant in “Flash Gordon”, and Mongo, after the attenuated Ruffian that hits a horse in the comedy of Mel Brooks “Blazing Saddles”.

In a 2019 speech, reported by Associated Press in his obitary, McMichael joked saying that his letter and his inconsisting stay with the Patriots, who had chosen him in the third round of the NFL Draft of 1980, ended after a season in the lace

But the Bears easily accepted in 1981. McMichael described to enter the office of the founder of the Bears, George Halas, and that they told me: “I have heard what kind of dirty rat you are in practice. Do not change, Steve.”

After a last season of the NFL, with the Green Bay Packers in 1994, his ventative dress helped relieve McMichael in five years as a professional fighter, who used a movement of pilots on opponents like IFEY where Spike. “

McMichael was born on October 17, 1957 in Houston. His parents divorced when he had a year. His mother, an English teacher, born Betty Ruth Smalley, married EV McMichael, an executive of the oil company. Steve, who took the last name of his stepfather as a little boy, refused to discuss his surgery at birth. His mother died of breast cancer in 2018, and his stepfather died after being shot in 1976.

In 1964, the family moved to Tiny Freer, Texas, South or San Antonio. McMichael Lyrics in Soccer, Baseball, Basketball, Athletics, Tennis and Golf in Freer High School.

He played football at the University of Texas, where he was an All-American in 1979. In 2010, he was included in the College football hall. In the NFL, he was appointed All-Pro in 1985 and 1987.

His wife survives, Misty (Davenport) McMichael; A daughter, Macy McMichael; Dos Hermanas, Kathy and Sharon McMichael; And a brother, Robert. His first marriage, with Debra Marshall in 1998, ended in divorce.

In 2020, McMichael experienced tingling in his arms. A year later, he was diagnosed with As Hey Hermor when he revealed his illness to Chicago Tribune in April 2021, saying that “he will approach you as a green bay packer of cheap shooting.”

As the disease progressed, McMichael lost the ability to move and speak.

He was enshrined in the Hall of Fame of Professional Soccer on August 3, 2024, but was too sick to attend the ceremony. The bust and the golden jacket granted to the members were introduced that day at home at home in Homer Glen, Illinois, a suburb of Chicago, where he was surrounded by former Bears teammates.

“It is a cruel iony that the Bears” Ironman succumbed to this dreaded disease, “George McCaskey, the president of the bears,” on Wednesday, in a statement. “However, Steve showed us through his struggle that his true strength was internal, and demonstrated in a daily basic class of his class, his dignity and his humanity.”