Bob Avellini obit

Bob Avellini, Bears QB who teamed with Walter Payton, dies

 

He was not on the list.

CHICAGO -- Bob Avellini, the former Bears quarterback who teamed with Hall of Fame running back Walter Payton to lead the Bears to the 1977 playoffs, has died. He was 70.

The Bears said Saturday that Avellini died of cancer. The team did not say when he died.

Avellini and Payton had the finest seasons of their careers in 1977, when Chicago and the Minnesota Vikings each went 9-5 in the NFC North. Minnesota won the division, while Chicago earned a wild-card playoff berth.

The Bears were beaten by Dallas 37-7 in the playoffs that season. Avellini threw 11 touchdown passes and had a career-high 2,004 yards with 18 interceptions. Payton, meanwhile, rushed for more than 1,800 yards and 14 TDs.

Avellini threw for 7,111 yards with 33 touchdowns and 69 interceptions in 73 games over nine seasons, from 1975 to 1984. He later completed with Mike Phipps for the job.

Avellini, from New York, was part of the same draft class as Payton, selected by Chicago in the sixth round out of Maryland in 1975. Payton was the fourth overall pick.

He played college football for the Maryland Terrapins and was selected by the Bears in the sixth round of the 1975 NFL draft. He finished his career with the New York Jets, for whom he did not appear in a game.

In 1984, with the Bears starting 2–0, Jim McMahon was injured and Mike Ditka inserted Avellini as the starter for a road game against the Green Bay Packers. Avellini had started only five games since the end of the 1978 season. The Bears mustered little offense with Avellini at the controls, but still managed to edge the Packers 9–7. Chicago struggled the next week as they were soundly beaten by the Seattle Seahawks 38–9. This resulted in Avellini being cut from the Bears’ roster by Ditka, ending his decade-long tenure with Chicago. Avellini signed with the New York Jets in mid-November, where he ended his playing career after the 1984 season. The Jets released him before the 1985 season. The Bears, meanwhile, went to the NFC Championship game in 1984 and won Super Bowl XX in 1985. Avellini made a brief comeback in 1986 with the Dallas Cowboys, starting three preseason games, but was released at the final cut deadline.

In May 2009, Avellini was arrested for driving under the influence and acquitted for the third time. He had been convicted of the offense in 2002. In October 2013, a DuPage County grand jury indicted Avellini on felony drunken driving charges a week after his sixth DUI-related arrest since 2002. On November 19, 2014, Avellini was sentenced to 18 months in prison for his 3rd DUI. Avellini declared bankruptcy on February 27, 2012 listing debts of more than $2.2 million and assets of $1.3 million.

On November 20, 2014, Avellini was sentenced to 18 months in prison for aggravated DUI.

Avellini was actively involved in a number of Chicago area charitable organizations and despite his professional real estate career had been on the air at several Chicago radio and television sports shows.

There wasn’t a lot of love lost between the veteran quarterback and coach Mike Ditka.

“It gets a little tiring hearing that he’s such a great competitor,” Avellini told reporters after he was released. “(Cowboys coach) Tom Landry is a great competitor, (Washington Redskins coach) Joe Gibbs is a great competitor and so are a lot of other coaches, but you don’t see any of them acting like Ditka does.

“I wasn’t surprised I was cut. (Ditka) threatened me with that once a week. He thinks that’s going to make you play better. After the first pass I threw this year against Green Bay, he said he was going to cut me then, and I was the only quarterback who could play. He wanted to yank me out of there and put in someone that didn’t even know our snap count.”

Ditka fired back.

“In the long-range picture for the Bears, the quarterbacks we have here now are better than Bob,” he said. “He wanted to do too much. He tried to go outside of our offense and that’s something you just can’t do. You don’t go out and audible to throw a 5-yard pass (against the Seahawks) when we have a runner (Payton) who averages 5.7 yards per carry.

“He did everything we asked of him, and there were a lot of things I liked about him. But on my radio shows, the No. 1 question was, ‘Why do you keep Avellini?’ I can’t play him here. The fans would boo him unmercifully. I don’t want to use that as an out, but it’s true. People have a tendency to blame the quarterback and to give him too much credit.”

That predicament for the Bears — the quarterback getting too much credit or blame — continued long after Avellini’s playing days concluded. He had a brief stint with the New York Jets after the Bears released him and he spent time with the Cowboys in the 1986 preseason before retiring.