Jim McMahon is always full of great stories from his playing days. Whether it was his many (many) times butting heads with Mike Ditka or refusing to take snaps from a center who’d just crapped his pants, McMahon always entertains when football is discussed. There’s probably no player he loves talking about more than the legendary Walter Payton.
The two were teammates from 1982 to 1987. Payton helped him acclimate to the NFL and gave him a huge vote of confidence early in his career that he should do what he felt was best for the team. Even if that meant disobeying the coaches from time to time. Soon they were on top of the world, winning the Super Bowl in 1985. This put their names at the top of lists for commercials and other financial opportunities.
One such instance involved a photo shoot for a parody poster called “Chicago Vice.” A play on the extremely popular Miami Vice television show at the time. It turns out as McMahon explained to the Sports Gambling Podcast, there was a wild Payton story behind it.
Jim McMahon again reminds everybody Payton was unique
In this era of fights for equality, this story serves as a reminder that people of all colors can be gun nuts. Not just older white men. It seems Payton was one such example. The guy owned a frickin’ Uzi. That can shoot anywhere from 600 to 1200 rounds per minute. The epitome of firepower. Apparently the arrival of those firearms to the shoot was a surprise to the photographers too.
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John Costacos, who ran the shoot, will never forget what happened.
“We got [to the photo shoot] and Walter had an arsenal of weapons in his trunk. They didn’t want to shoot with the footballs…they wanted to use the guns.”
Estimations were Payton had around 20 different weapons in the trunk of the Lamborghini. Costacos said it looked like the stash from Terminator 2. Something the Hall of Fame running back was quite proud of. Just another reminder of how larger than life Sweetness truly was.
