Professional Football Career
McMichael was drafted out of Texas in 1980 by the New England Patriots. He was acquired by the Chicago Bears as a free agent in 1981. He would become one of their starting defensive tackles and help lead them to a Super Bowl win in 1985. He had a streak of 101 games started until 1990, when his playing time was reduced. He led the Bears with 111⁄2 sacks in 1988. He had 108 tackles in 1989. McMichael was named to the NFC's Pro Bowl teams for the 1986 and 1987 seasons.
McMichael gained notability in a 1991 game against the New York Jets. With the Bears down 13-6 with 1:54 remaining, McMichael forced a Blair Thomas fumble and recovered it at the New York 36. Quarterback Jim Harbaugh then threw a game-tying touchdown to Neal Anderson. With :18 left in the game, Harbaugh scored on a 1-yard run. Bears coach Mike Ditka said in 2005 that McMichael was the toughest player he had ever coached. He played with the Green Bay Packers in 1994 before retiring.
Read more about this topic: Steve McMichael
Famous quotes containing the words professional, football and/or career:
“So-called professional mathematicians have, in their reliance on the relative incapacity of the rest of mankind, acquired for themselves a reputation for profundity very similar to the reputation for sanctity possessed by theologians.”
—G.C. (Georg Christoph)
“In football they measure forty-yard sprints. Nobody runs forty yards in basketball. Maybe you run the ninety-four feet of the court; then you stop, not on a dime, but on Miss Liberty’s torch. In football you run over somebody’s face.”
—Donald Hall (b. 1928)
“It is a great many years since at the outset of my career I had to think seriously what life had to offer that was worth having. I came to the conclusion that the chief good for me was freedom to learn, think, and say what I pleased, when I pleased. I have acted on that conviction... and though strongly, and perhaps wisely, warned that I should probably come to grief, I am entirely satisfied with the results of the line of action I have adopted.”
—Thomas Henry Huxley (1825–95)