Another member from the legendary 1985 Chicago Bears squad has passed.
Matt Suhey, the fullback and best friend of Hall of Famer Walter Payton, whom he so often led to daylight, died over Labor Day weekend. A person familiar with the situation confirmed Suhey’s death to USA TODAY Sports. That person was granted anonymity due to the sensitivity of the matter.
Suhey, who spent his entire 10-year NFL career in Chicago, was 68. The cause of his death, which has not been publicly disclosed, is currently unknown.
“I felt like my dad and (Suhey) really got close because they had to be on the same page,” Jarrett Payton, Walter’s son, said in “A Football Life,” an NFL Network docuseries.
“Matt watched my dad’s back, kinda like being a bodyguard or protector. He blocked for him, he took a lotta hits, making sure that my dad would get the glory. Matt kinda sat back in the background, very unselfish.”
Payton, who died in 1999, 12 years after he retired as the NFL’s all-time leading rusher, was the godfather of Suhey’s son, Scott.
A beloved teammate generally, Suhey also presented former Bears offensive tackle Jimbo Covert during his induction into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 2021.
Payton, Suhey, Hall of Famer Steve McMichael and former safety Dave Duerson are among members from the famed ’85 Bears, arguably the greatest single-season team in NFL history and one that crossed over into popular culture, who have died in recent years. Chicago made the playoffs in five of Suhey’s 10 seasons, a span that has clearly marked the franchise’s most sustained stretch of success during the Super Bowl era, which began in 1966.
Matt Suhey college, NFL stats
A second-round pick out of Penn State in 1980, Suhey played in 148 games for the Bears and started 100 prior to his retirement following the 1989 season. He rushed for 2,946 yards and 20 touchdowns during his career, roughly what Payton routinely produced in two years.
But Suhey was also a very effective receiver out of the backfield, catching 260 balls for 2,113 yards, including five touchdowns and 93 first downs over the course of his career.
Suhey rushed for 52 yards and the first touchdown in the ’85 Bears’ Super Bowl 20 rout of the New England Patriots, still the only time the century-plus-old organization has hoisted a Lombardi Trophy. Infamously, Payton did not score in that 46-10 runaway, an admitted oversight by head coach Mike Ditka.
Suhey blocked for an 1,100-yard rusher in eight of his 10 seasons, Payton accounting for six of those and Neal Anderson the final two. The two outlying years were 1982 and ’87, both of those campaigns curtailed due to strikes by NFL players.
All the NFL news on and off the field. Sign up for USA TODAY’s 4th and Monday newsletter.