The Chicago Bears have lost another member of the legendary 1985 Super Bowl championship team, as former fullback Matt Suhey has passed away at the age of 68, NBC Chicago confirmed.
Suhey, who was the lead blocker for Walter Payton, was surprisingly the player who scored the first touchdown in Super Bowl XX, which ultimately led to the Bears’ victory against the New England Patriots.
He spent his entire 10-year career with the Bears from 1980 till 1989, appearing in 148 career games with 828 carries, 2946 rushing yards, and 20 touchdowns.
Former Bears Super Bowl Champion Fullback Matt Suhey Dies
Matt Suhey was close friends with Walter Payton, and ESPN’s Melissa Isaacson described Suhey in an article from 2010 as a “humble kid, respectful, hard-working.”
“It was sort of like husband and wife where you just know what the other one’s thinking,” Payton’s wife Connie said regarding the relationship between Suhey and Walter. “It made their chemistry on the field a lot easier and though he didn’t say this to me but knowing Walter, it was very important that he had that relationship with Matt.”
The trust she describes wasn’t built in a single season, it was forged over years of Suhey putting his selfish desires aside to clear the way for Payton, run after run.
“We certainly had football and the passion to play football in common, though even there, there were differences,” Suhey said regarding Walter. “And I was born and raised in Pennsylvania in very much of an academic environment, just a completely different environment than his [in Columbia, Miss., and a predominantly black college in Jackson State]. He didn’t have that many white people around growing up while we had a lot more black people, but I didn’t look at him as Walter Payton, the black guy, and hopefully as we became friends, he didn’t look at me as Matt Suhey, the white guy. He joked around about it a little bit, but it was never an issue.”
Suhey was loved by his teammates and was an integral part of the Bears’ Super Bowl win that often goes overlooked.
Former Bears Super Bowl Champion Fullback Dies