Sunday 29 January 2017 12:19, UK
Chicago Bears are one of the oldest and most successful franchises in the history of the NFL.
Along with Arizona Cardinals, they are one of the two franchises that remain from the very first days of the league, so they hold a special place in the heritage of professional American sports.
A combination of on-field success and off-field financial difficulties meant that the first few years of the Bears' lifetime were full of mixed emotions, but they soon became a dominant force in the league thanks to the likes of founder, George Halas.
Multiple titles in the 1930s and 1940s made them a fearsome opponent and a central part of the development of the NFL over the next few decades.
They recorded one of the best seasons of all time in their Super Bowl-clinching 1985 season - at 15-1, they recorded a .938 winning percentage and held the opposition to just 198 points in the regular season.
The '46 defence', a defensive formation in American football, was popularised by the Bears and was the integral reason for their Super Bowl success that year.
Defensive coordinator, Buddy Ryan, and strong safety, Doug Plank, whose jersey number 46 was the moniker behind the formation that they developed, ran the show in 1985 and led the Bears to their first post-AFL- NFL-merger championship victory.
The pre-merger days (before 1970) for Chicago remain the most successful in its history and keep them up there with the best in sport.
Despite that early success, having reached the playoffs 12 times and won eight of their nine national league titles between 1921 and 1963, the Bears have fallen short of such success with just one Super Bowl appearance since 1985.
The championship game in 2007 saw them tamed by a Peyton Manning-led Indianapolis Colts, so the days of Hall-of- Famers, Halas and Mike Ditka, both successful former players and coaches, remain a distant memory in Chicago.
