Matt Suhey, the bruising Chicago Bears fullback who cleared a path for Hall of Fame running back Walter Payton for eight seasons and scored the opening touchdown of Super Bowl XX, died on Sunday, September 6, 2026, at his home in Deerfield, Ill. He was 68.
The Bears confirmed his death and provided no further details. A Lake County coroner’s office spokesperson said an initial police inquiry “revealed that there were no suspicious circumstances.”
Two days later the office attributed the death to natural causes without conducting its own full inquiry. “Our preliminary investigation indicated that Mr. Suhey had a significant medical history and was being treated by a primary care physician (PCP),” chief deputy coroner Steve Newton said on September 8, adding that “our investigation was limited, and the PCP will be completing the death certificate for him, as it will be Natural Causes.” Nothing further has been released since.
Teammates were caught off guard, in part because Suhey had looked healthy in recent weeks. Former Bears safety Gary Fencik had been trying to set a date for breakfast with him. “It was out of the blue. I was scheduling a breakfast with Matt for this week, so I was shocked,” Fencik said, adding: “Some of my teammates are passing away. We’re no longer invincible.” Hall of Fame linebacker Mike Singletary, a teammate on that Bears defense, put it more simply: “I’m really, really going to miss that light.”
The First Touchdown in New Orleans
Suhey’s signature moment came in New Orleans on January 26, 1986, when he broke loose in the first quarter of Super Bowl XX for an 11-yard scoring run — the first touchdown of a 46-10 rout of the New England Patriots. He ran 11 times for 52 yards that afternoon and added a 24-yard catch. The title is still the only Lombardi Trophy the franchise has won.
Blocking was not his only contribution that year. Suhey ranked second on the team in rushing with 471 yards as Chicago went 15-1, behind only Payton, who ran for 1,551 yards and nine touchdowns. Chicago shut out the New York Giants and the Los Angeles Rams in the playoffs before burying New England, and Suhey carried 23 times over those three postseason games.
Payton’s Lead Blocker for Eight Years
Chicago spent a second-round pick on Suhey in the 1980 NFL Draft, taking him 46th overall out of Penn State, where he ran for 2,818 yards and 26 touchdowns in four years. He followed his father, Steve Suhey, to the Nittany Lions, where Penn State calls the Higgins-Suhey line, four generations deep, the first family of its football program. He never wore another uniform, playing 10 seasons for the Bears before retiring after the 1989 campaign.
Durability was part of the job, and he rarely missed a Sunday, playing 148 of a possible 152 regular-season games and starting 100. Suhey wound up with 828 carries for 2,946 rushing yards and 20 rushing touchdowns. His hands accounted for 260 receptions for 2,113 yards and five scores, and the two columns together left him with 5,059 yards from scrimmage and 25 total touchdowns.
The figures that mattered most to him were another man’s. Payton piled up 9,800 yards and 51 touchdowns across the eight years he ran behind Suhey, work that helped push him to the top of the NFL’s career rushing list — a place he held until Emmitt Smith passed his total on October 27, 2002. Suhey did the same job for running back Neal Anderson once Payton retired. Anderson gained more than 1,100 yards in 1988, and the Bears reached the playoffs five straight years, from 1984 through 1988.
A Bond That Outlasted the Game
The bond between the two men went well past the backfield. Payton was godfather to Suhey’s youngest son, Scott. The NFL series “A Football Life” called Suhey the running back’s best friend. “Matt watched my dad’s back, kind of like being a bodyguard or protector,” Walter Payton’s son, Jarrett Payton, said in that episode. “He took a lot of hits, making sure that my dad would get the glory, and Matt kind of just sat back in the background, very unselfish.”
Suhey took over caring for Payton in 1999 as his friend was dying of bile duct cancer, keeping the crush of reporters away, and he later served as executor of the estate. One lasting image of the pair came from a spring 1985 minicamp in Lake Forest, where a camera caught Payton pulling Suhey’s shorts down from behind as the fullback lined up for a play.
From the Backfield to the Trading Floor
During his offseasons Suhey traded at the Chicago Board of Trade, and he later made that his full-time career. He also ran a bottled water company after he stopped playing. The franchise stayed part of his life: he served as Jim Covert’s presenter when the Bears offensive lineman was enshrined in the Pro Football Hall of Fame with the Centennial Class in August 2021, and on September 3, 2019, he was at Soldier Field when statues of Payton and George Halas were unveiled.
His death is another blow to a 1985 team that ranks among the most celebrated in NFL history. Steve McMichael, a Hall of Fame defensive tackle on that squad, died in 2025 at 67 after living several years with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis.
Jarrett Payton paid tribute on Monday, September 7, to the man who watched over his family for decades. “After we lost my dad in 1999, Matt became the biggest father figure I had,” he wrote in a social media post. His father, he added, had left Suhey in charge, and Suhey went on to protect the family and check in on them year after year, never once making it about himself. “Brian’s Song told the story of Piccolo and Sayers. Somebody needs to tell the story of 34 and 26,” he wrote, adding: “The Payton family will continue to lift Donna, Joey, Allison, and Scotty up in prayer during this difficult time.”
