City’s biggest Bears game took place Jan. 12, 1986

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Updated: August 4, 2011 4:20PM

I’m not gonna go old fogy here, but history does count for something, all you Twitter-blinded young’uns.

On Sunday, the Bears will play in what is being widely hailed in our town as ‘‘the biggest game in Bears history!’’ (exclamation mark included) and I — hellfire, I’m old and mean and still vicious in a small circle — just can’t abide such nonsense.

Not without comment, anyway.

First of all, the Bears played a pretty big NFC Championship Game just four years ago. Anybody remember? Beat the Saints’ halos off 39-14 at Soldier Field.

Maybe fans weren’t off-the-charts frenzied because of concerns about hot-and-cold quarterback Rex Grossman, mainly. But the Bears were 14-3 going in, and Super Bowl XLI and the palms of Miami beckoned seductively.

Sure, the Bears beat the distant Saints and not the familiar-as-the-brother-in-the-bunk-above-you Packers. But as I recall — and it’s not that hard, really, if your mind isn’t gone — Chicago was pretty hopped up.

What I fear is a lot of you think four years ago is lint, nothing more than a deleted text message from a drunken frat bro, a zit on Mark Zuckerberg’s chin.

But remember, kids, it’s one thing to live in the present. It’s another to think the world started when you rolled out of bed this morning.

So I present you with something to think about in the feverish days before the BEARS AND PACKERS GO FOR ALL THE MARBLES! (Even though more and larger marbles exist in Arlington, Texas.)

On Jan. 12, 1986, the Bears played the Los Angeles Rams for the NFC championship, at home on the frozen artificial carpet then gracing the surface of Soldier Field.

Incredible atmosphere

This was no ordinary game, if any deep playoff game can be considered such. No, this was a game carrying such meaning, such repressed hunger, such symbolic and very real pride for a team, an organization, an entire city that you can scarcely conjure the quivering, conglomerate passion unless you were there with the chosen thousands in the stands that frozen day or watching on TV with family or pals as the awe-inspiring drama unfolded.

The Bears obliterated the Rams 24-0 the way sledgehammers obliterate front steps. Behind a crazed defense led by Mike Singletary, Richard Dent, Dan Hampton, Gary Fencik, Wilber Marshall and pals, the Bears scared Rams quarterback Dieter Brock into only 10 completions in 31 pass attempts for a total of 66 yards. Hall of Fame running back Eric Dickerson carried 17 times for 46 yards, and the Rams finished with 130 net yards and zero points.

On offense, Bears quarterback Jim McMahon ran for the first touchdown on a 16-yard keeper, threw a 22-yard touchdown pass to wide receiver Willie Gault and wore a self-lettered headband that said in big black print, ‘‘ROZELLE.”

Pete Rozelle was the NFL commissioner who had fined the “Punky QB’’ for wearing advertising headbands in previous games. Rozelle was at Soldier Field, half- amused and half-flabbergasted, which prompted McMahon to say to reporters after the game, “Bet you guys thought I left off a verb.”

You thought Jay Cutler was the first less-than-outgoing Bears quarterback?

At any rate, the 1985 Bears were in the process of dislodging a giant hairball in the great city of Chicago’s stomach.

The Blackhawks had not won a title since 1961, the White Sox not since 1917, the Cubs not since God created Earth, the Bulls (Michael Jordan had joined the year before) never. The Bears themselves had won nothing since their 1963 NFL championship. The city was tense, on edge. Chicago needed a ramrod, a defiant group of mayhem-makers, lunch-bucket tough guys to shove it all down the pipes and blow it out into the face of the world.

Ba-looey!

After that NFC Championship Game, Bears defensive coordinator Buddy Ryan was hustling through the parking lot when I caught up with him and asked what he had done while using the 46 short-yardage defense even on some first downs.

“That’s where we put Too Tall [6-7 Tyrone Keys] in for Fatso [315-pound William Perry],’’ Ryan explained. “Because we expected them to run.’’

Remember, Buddy begat current Jets coach Rex Ryan, cocky and toe-loving, so you can see decorum runs in the family.

But here’s the point.

The snow came down in the fourth quarter of that game as Marshall picked up a fumble and, behind a “Refrigerator” Perry escort, ran 52 yards for the final score. And many people there at the field cried. Cigars were lit in the locker room, courtesy of Jimbo Covert, and McMahon said, “F--k the champagne, I want a beer!’’ I kid you not.

If you’re younger than, say, 35, I guess you can be excused for knowing none of this.

If not, you’ll recall the old saying: Those who don’t remember history are condemned to repeat junior high.