Amidst all the hoopla about the "West Coast Offense," one thing that has gone overlooked about the 49ers of that era has been their very underrated defensive units.
After one season (I think it was 1984), the 49ers made NFL history by sending all four of their starting defensive backs to the Pro Bowl (cornerbacks Eric Wright and Ronnie Lott, and safeties Dwight Hicks and Carlton Williamson).
I’ll always remember an up-and-coming 1983 Lions team playing San Francisco, which had already won a Super Bowl and could afford to share some of the wealth.
Detroit lost 24-23 on a last second missed Eddie Murray field goal. Since then, the two franchises went in only slightly different directions and Detroit has consistently tried to use imports from San Francisco from the aforementioned Bill Walsh coaching tree-— Mornhingweg, Mariucci, Rod Marinelli to make itself more like the 49ers under Walsh. I can readily understand that thinking, because when you think of excellence, you think of him.
Bill Walsh is one of the few great NFL head coaches to have also been a superior college coach, and while many very good NFL coaches created great teams, Walsh through his unique style and intellectual approach (e.g. practices that emphasized precision rather than hitting) to football created an actual program of the sort one associates with college football that outlasted his time as coach. The winning atmosphere he developed, the attitude that it meant something to be a 49er, it was like gold. The whole Montana-Steve Young thing was like a competition between a senior and junior at, say, USC. Overachievers like Roger Craig (Walsh got every last drip of talent and effort he had to give out of that guy) thrived in it. Receivers weren’t primadonnas who stood apart from the team, they actually blocked. Team members worked out together in the off season.
He will be missed.