There’s A Reason Walter Payton Was Called “Sweetness”
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Three years into his NFL career, Chicago Bears running back Walter Payton was named the AP NFL Most Valuable Player. He was also, unsurprisingly, the NFL Offensive Player of the Year. By the time he retired in 1987, he was arguably the greatest running back ever to play the game.
Heck, we’d even rank him higher than Roger Staubach on this list if he had played more than five years in the ’70s. That half-decade was transcendent though. In 1999, the NFL changed their Man of the Year Award to the Walter Payton Man of the Year Award after he tragically died from a rare liver disease.
