Monsters: The 1985 Chicago Bears and the Wild Heart of Football

“Every year brings a Super Bowl, World Series, NBA, and Stanley Cup champion. All are duly noted and celebrated. But a memorable few have greater and more lasting resonance, a standing that excellence alone cannot explain. The 1985 Chicago Bears were such a team, a mélange of talents and outsize personalities that captivated and embodied a city. Rich Cohen experienced it as an obsessed seventeen-year-old. Almost three decades on, he remains obsessed--entertainingly and insightfully so, but obsessed nonetheless. His combination of reporting and remembrance is by turns evocative, revealing, quirky, and funny as hell--or at least as funny as Gary Fencik doing the Super Bowl Shuffle.” ―Bob Costas “For anyone from Chicago, or anyone with any sense, the '85 Bears are the best team there ever was, and Rich Cohen has written the book we've always wanted. It's got all the people you want to hear from: Ditka, McMahon, Singletary, Wilson, Fencik, and, thank God, the incomparable and too-often-forgotten Doug Plank. This book--full of soul and searching, and also knock-you-down funny--is not just a great sports book, not just a great Chicago book, but a great book, period.” ―Dave Eggers, who grew up two miles from the Bears practice facility “Rich Cohen's Monsters is the best book on professional football I know--the best because the most truthful.” ―Joseph Epstein, The Wall Street Journal “A riveting account of one of football's most iconic teams, the 1985 Chicago Bears, features frank interviews with the players and coaches.” ― People Magazine “As much as it is about the '85 Bears, Monsters is an emotional education of football and ‘the Stone Age pleasure of watching large men battle to the point of exhaustion.' At one point, Cohen attributes Halas for the development of football's emphasis on the passing game: ‘It was Halas, as much as anyone, who invented the modern NFL offense and lifted the game from the ground into the air.” ―Kevin Nguyen , Grantland “Entire forests have given their lives to the pursuit of the truth about Mongo, the Fridge, Danimal and other larger-than-life characters on Da Coach's rambunctious squad. The search ends with Monsters: The 1985 Chicago Bears and the Wild Heart of Football . . . Author Rich Cohen was a 17-year-old New Trier High School senior as the Bears were laying waste to the NFL in 1985 . . . his quest to understand the attraction 28 years later makes for a story that reflects Chicago--rough, tough and defiant to a man, the '85 Bears are the embodiment of this city's self-image.” ―Dan McGrath, The Chicago Sun-Times “Rich Cohen writes the best stuff--people, scenes, sentences, drunks, big men, fine women, jokes, impressions, secrets--in America.” ―David Lipsky, author of Although of Course You End Up Becoming Yourself “The Chicago Bears are one of the most fascinating franchises and compelling stories in football. From Mr. Halas to Mr. Ditka, from the Fridge to McMahon, it's been one of the wild rides of the NFL. Rich Cohen has captured the spirit of a team and an era, its heart and mind, its great triumphs. It's a wonderful story filled with characters with character. It doesn't get any better.” ―Joe Theismann, Super Bowl–winning quarterback, Washington Redskins “ Monsters is a remarkable book, beautifully written, but that's beside the point. You think you're going to read a football book but you wind up reading about America, about who we are--you and me--and even why. And Rich Cohen has accomplished this feat through portraits of some of the greatest characters ever to have charged onto a football field and then left it.” ―Ira Berkow, winner of the Pulitzer Prize “Rich Cohen wrote it his own bleeping way and the result is a monster of a book. I'm a Packers guy, but I respect the Bears, our oldest rivals, and loved this book.” ―David Maraniss, author of When Pride Still Mattered “The triumphant and tragic saga of the 1985 Chicago Bears and the aftermath of their historic championship season is a subject worthy of epic poetry. In Rich Cohen, the Monsters of the Midway have found their bard. Joyous yet mournful, inspirational yet irreverent, celebratory yet unsparing, Cohen's Monsters is an Aeneid for football lovers, blowin' our minds just like we knew it would.” ―Adam Langer, author of Crossing California, The Thieves of Manhattan, and The Salinger Contract “A fan's engaging yet ultimately melancholy love letter to his beloved team and his hometown. 'Pick your team carefully, because your team is your destiny.' Vanity Fair and Rolling Stone contributor Cohen's father's solemn advice can be easily understood by sports fans. However, other readers will enjoy this entertaining, if profane, history of the 1985 NFL champion Chicago Bears.” ― Kirkus “I just finished a book [ Monsters ] I thought was pretty close to perfect. Which simply means Rich Cohen picked a subject that matters to me and wrote exactly the book I wanted to read about it . . . Cohen writes one strong, creative sentence after another . . . Because the author understands football, he asks the former Bears intelligent questions and they open up to him.” ― Michael Miner, The Chicago Reader “Whether you're a Bears fan or not, [ Monsters ] will entertain you a great deal. Cohen is an interesting writer, and the '85 Bears were a very interesting team. Sports fans will really enjoy it, but even those who don't much care about the NFL will similarly find it unputdownable.” ― John Tamny, Forbes Rich Cohen is the New York Times -bestselling author of Tough Jews, Monsters, Sweet and Low, The Sun & the Moon & the Rolling Stones, The Chicago Cubs, and The Last Pirate of New York , and, with Jerry Weintraub, When I Stop Talking, You’ll Know I’m Dead . He is the cocreator of the HBO series Vinyl , a contributing editor at Rolling Stone , and a writer at large for Air Mail. He has written for The New York Times, The New Yorker, The Atlantic, and Harper’s Magazine , among other publications. Cohen has won the Great Lakes Book Award, the Chicago Public Library’s 21st Century Award, and the ASCAP Deems Taylor Award. He lives in Connecticut.