Former Chicago Bears QB Bob Avellini, who helped the team make the playoffs in 1977, dies at 70

Bob Avellini, who quarterbacked the Chicago Bears through some of the greatest seasons of Walter Payton’s career and helped the team make the playoffs in 1977, has died. He was 70.

A team official confirmed Avellini’s death and said he had been battling cancer.

The Bears selected Avellini, a native of Queens in New York City, in the sixth round out of Maryland in the 1975 NFL draft, the same class that produced Payton. Avellini started the final four games of his rookie season, passing...