Seahawks assistant Leslie Frazier of 1985 Bears looks for another ring in 40th anniversary of championship
SAN JOSE, Calif. — Most of the 1985 Bears don’t have to worry about a conflict of interest when they root for their old team, but it’s more complicated for former cornerback Leslie Frazier because of his coaching career.
He wasn’t able to attend when the Bears honored the ’85 team at their season opener, for example, because he’s the Seahawks assistant head coach and was in his office working on their upcoming opponent. Ron Rivera looped him in via FaceTime.
Nonetheless, even while working for another organization, Frazier enjoyed the Bears’ success and would’ve loved to see them get past the Rams in the divisional round of the playoffs.
“No doubt — I was so much pulling for those guys to come to Seattle and play us in the NFC Championship Game,” Frazier told the Sun-Times. “I’ll always be a Bears fan because of my allegiance to the McCaskey family. Ed and Virginia were so good to me and my family during my time there, and I still have a lot of relationships in the organization, so I’m always pulling for the Bears.”
Frazier, now 66, played five seasons for the Bears before a knee injury derailed his career and has been in coaching for nearly four decades. His second act included two seasons as an assistant at University of Illinois, multiple NFL defensive coordinator jobs and a three-year run as Vikings head coach.
He has a chance to earn his third Super Bowl ring Sunday when the Seahawks face the Patriots at Levi’s Stadium. He won one as a Colts assistant coach when they beat the Bears in Super Bowl XLI, a night in which he most certainly wasn’t pulling for them,
But with this being the 40th anniversary of the ’85 team’s championship and, incidentally, the Patriots as his opponent, Frazier said the memories have flooded him this week.
He thinks his players, however, are largely unaware that he was a key part of one of the greatest teams in NFL history. A Seahawks assistant coach showed a clip of one of his 20 career interceptions in a meeting this season, “So they know that I played, but they may not know the type of team that I played on.”
One of them certainly does: safety Julian Love, who grew up in a Bears household and played at Nazareth Academy.
“He’s iconic,” he said. “If you’re part of that team, you’re a superstar.”
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