Rozner: A playoff loss that haunts ex-Bears 40 years later

People still ask Brian Baschnagel about The Play.

On Monday it will be 40 years since it occurred, but when Bears fans recognize him they continue to agonize over it.

"I can't tell you how many people bring that up to me, even now," said the 65-year-old former Bears receiver. "It's more often than you'd think after all this time."

It's because The Play changed a game and cost the Bears a chance to reach the Super Bowl, and for a generation of fans that didn't dream of such things, this was a very big deal.

• • •

In 1979, the Bears were stumbling at 3-5 before winning seven of their last eight games, including a 42-6 victory over the Cardinals on the final Sunday at home that gave the Bears the necessary point differential to sneak into the playoffs as a wild card.

If, that is, Dallas could defeat Washington in the late Sunday afternoon game.

"Back then, it was so much more fun playing than even at the end of my career," said Baschnagel, who retired in 1986. "Not so much from a game standpoint, but we used to tailgate after games under the north end zone.

"And we were there listening to the Dallas game, huddled around a car radio."

The Cowboys rallied from down 13 late against Washington and won it with 40 seconds left when Roger Staubach hit Tony Hill in the end zone.

"That was a pretty good party," said left tackle Ted Albrecht. "All the wives and girlfriends would stock their cars like bars and everyone brought food.

"We had a party after every game. Sometimes even the coaches showed up. But that was a special night under the stands."

Just like that, the Bears were in the playoffs for the second time in three years.

"(Punter) Bob Parsons had his car packed to drive back to Pennsylvania," Baschnagel laughed. "And he was two hours out of Chicago and had to turn around and come back."

When the Bears reached the postseason in 1977 for the first time since the 1963 title - on a Bob Thomas field goal in the Meadowlands - it was also after winning seven of their last eight. But that team was Walter Payton and little else, and they were crushed in the playoffs by Dallas.

This time against Philadelphia in the '79 postseason, the Bears had Payton and a great defense with Buddy Ryan already devising confusing schemes.

Gary Fencik and Doug Plank were at safety and the Bears possessed a feared defensive line that featured Alan Page, Mike Hartenstine, Jim Osborne and a rookie named Dan Hampton.

"There was a lot of talent on that Philadelphia team," Baschnagel said of an Eagles group that would reach the Super Bowl the following season. "Two fantastic defensive teams, but our defense was as good as any. We knew we could win that game."

• • •

Playing on the miserable AstroTurf at Veterans Stadium on Dec. 23, 1979, the Bears were up 17-10 and the defense held the Eagles on their first possession of the second half, the visitors taking over just shy of their own 15-yard line after the punt.

That's when The Play changed the contest.

"Only in Chicago do people remember an offensive lineman," said Albrecht, the 15th pick in the 1977 draft, playing five years before a back injury ended his career. "But when people hear my name, they want to hear stories about Walter.

"And one of the first stories I always tell is about that play."

Just moments before the Bears' first offensive snap of the second half, Baschnagel came in motion toward the offensive line. Then again, Baschnagel was always in motion. It was kind of a running joke among Bears fans at the time.

"It's true," Baschnagel said. "I ran more yards during a game than anyone. I ran miles every Sunday."

As the receiver neared the pile, quarterback Mike Phipps took the snap and handed off to Payton. With two pulling guards and running back Dave Williams in front, the Bears executed perfectly.

Payton ran to his right on the sweep. Baschnagel sealed the edge. The guards picked off their guys. Williams made his block. Payton beat two linebackers around the corner.

And he was gone down the sideline.

Payton shook off tacklers before Herm Edwards horse-collared him and dragged Payton down a foot short of a touchdown.

It was 84 yards and the longest run of his career.

But while he was on the ground in the end zone trying to catch his breath, the Bears heard a cheer from the home crowd.

"I chased Walter all the way down to the end zone and we were throwing a tailgate down there. That was the dagger," Albrecht said. "All of a sudden, there's a commotion and the stripes are waving us back."

Brian Baschnagel had been called for illegal motion, moving forward at the snap.

There are many reasons people remember The Play, but none bigger than the fact that there was no infraction. It was a phantom call, as you probably remember if you were watching that game, and can plainly see if you watch it on YouTube right now.

"My responsibility was to crack back on the outside linebacker," Baschnagel explains, as if it happened yesterday. "The field was wet. It was a terrible surface, very slick.

"I'm running parallel to the line of scrimmage and just before the snap I put my hand out to balance myself so I wouldn't slip. At the snap of the ball, I got the linebacker and Walter got the ball."

Payton - with TDs already from a yard out and 2 yards out - was unstoppable from that close to the end zone, usually flying over the top, so without the ghastly call the Bears would have been up 24-10.

Instead, the Bears walked back 84 yards and went three-and-out.

• • •

The defense got the ball back on a Plank tip and interception by Allan Ellis, but Thomas missed a 50-yard field goal a hair left and the Bears were in trouble.

Philadelphia tied it on their next possession with a 29-yard TD pass from Ron Jaworski to a wide-open Harold Carmichael.

With 12 minutes left in the game - and Fencik on crutches on the sideline - Jaworski hit Billy Campfield out of the backfield and the short throw went for 63 yards and a 24-17 Eagles lead.

But there were more ridiculous calls that left some of us watching - and some of those playing - wondering if the refs had chosen a side for nefarious reasons.

"So many things happened in that game that made no sense, but I was a rookie so what did I know?" Hampton said. "I remember Buddy Ryan in '84 or '85 talking about that game, talking about how good we were playing at the time and how we got robbed.

"All the years I've been watching football, I still don't know if I've ever seen anything worse."

In the middle of the fourth quarter, Williams was ruled to have fumbled at the Bears' 34, but replay showed he had been down for about an hour. Of course, there was no red flag or automatic review of turnovers in 1979.

With 7:25 left to play in a one-score game, a Hampton sack of Jaworski knocked the Eagles out of field-goal range, but on the play Osborne was called for unnecessary roughness when he retaliated after being smacked in the face twice during the play and hit late after the play.

The Eagles got a free 15 yards and a gift of a field goal with 5 minutes remaining.

Eagles up 10. Game over.

"Ozzie never said anything to the officials. Ever. And on that play he was screaming at them," Hampton remembers. "He was really protesting and calling it (bogus) over and over again."

Page recovered an Eagles fumble with 3:29 left on the Philly 38, but on the next play Phipps threw it right to Edwards.

The Bears' defense held yet again, but with a little more than 2 minutes to go in the game the Bears tried to block a punt. Linebacker Gary Campbell stopped before hitting the punter, who jumped into Campbell with his foot and kicked him in the chest.

Yep, another bad call for running into the kicker. First down Philadelphia and the Eagles ran out the clock.

"We fought so hard to get in (the playoffs) and then we fought so hard in that game," Hampton said. "Then, they do that to Walter? In real time, you knew it was a (bogus) call. We watched it on film and it was (bogus). You watch it now and it's still a (bogus) call.

"If you didn't know any better at the time, you would have thought the game was fixed, and 40 years later I don't know any better and I still think it was fixed."

• • •

Baschnagel played the rest of that game with a clear conscience, but after the game it was difficult to hold it together.

"It's not like I dropped a touchdown pass. In my head I knew I didn't do anything wrong," he says, shaking his head. "Still, that was an incredibly humbling and emotional game for me and such a disturbing loss.

"There was a lot that went on. A lot of things in the second half could have changed the game. One play never results in a loss, but on that play we go up two touchdowns and we don't lose that game with our defense.

"I was very close with my receivers coach, Doug Gerhart, and he comes up to me in the locker room after the game and says, 'I haven't made an announcement, but I'm leaving coaching.'

"I loved Doug. After Doug said he was leaving football, in conjunction with the loss and all that happened, I just lost it and started crying."

The greatest football player of all time saw Baschnagel in tears and came to his aid immediately.

"I was sitting on the bench and Walter comes up and sits down next to me," Baschnagel said. "He put his arm around me and said, 'Brian, if everyone on this team had your heart, we'd go to the Super Bowl every year.'

"I never forgot that."

That night Baschnagel didn't travel with the team back to Chicago, instead staying with his parents in Philadelphia. The next morning he got a phone call from Neill Armstrong.

"The phone rings at my mom's house and it's the head coach of the Bears," Baschnagel said. "I didn't know what to think.

"He said, 'Brian, I just want you to know I reviewed the film and you were not illegally in motion. You did absolutely nothing wrong. It's clear as can be.'

"When we went to camp the next summer, Art McNally - the head of officials - visited camp like he did with every team in the preseason to go over new rules."

That did not go well for McNally.

"Boy did he get the wrong assignment," Albrecht laughed. "Before he could say a word, one guy started yelling and then everyone was yelling about the Baschnagel play. The whole team was screaming at him.

"He said, 'Yes, we blew the call.' Then there was more screaming. We were like, 'Great. Thanks a lot. That doesn't help us now.' It was a very loud meeting. The guys were still really angry."

And the confession was no consolation.

"Art said when I put my hand out, even though I wasn't going toward the line, the official assumed I was moving forward, but I never did," Baschnagel said. "He admitted it was a really bad call.

"It was just such a shame because we were on a roll. We were hot. Who knows how far we might have gone."

There was no team in the NFC the Bears couldn't handle. The Steelers in the Super Bowl? Well, that's a different story, but with Payton and that defense they might have stayed around a while.

You never know, right?

• • •

Brian Baschnagel played nine years with the Bears, 10 if you include the 1985 season which he spent on injured reserve after a knee injury in camp.

He got his ring and retired from football in 1986, working in sales for decades. He's also been working for the NFL nearly as long as a uniform inspector, checking players before, during and after games, trying to keep them from getting fined.

He speaks fondly of his playing days, his teammates and the opportunity he got at Ohio State and then with the Bears, but there are games that stick with him, and that Eagles playoff game is at the top of the list.

It's not like he thinks about it every day, but on the days he doesn't it's almost inevitable that someone will bring it up.

Chicago remembers The Play - and some of us are still bitter about it.