Posted on 07/30/2007 12:02:01 PM PDT by Doomonyou
(07-30) 11:50 PDT -- Bill Walsh, the imaginative and charismatic coach who took over a downtrodden 49ers team and built one of the greatest franchises in NFL history, has died at the age of 75.
A master of using short, precisely timed passes to control the ball in what became known as the West Coast offense, he guided the team to three Super Bowl championships and six NFC West division titles in his 10 years as head coach.
The 49ers had been wrecked by mismanagement and unwise personnel decisions under former general manager Joe Thomas when owner Ed DeBartolo Jr. cleaned house in 1979. Walsh, who had led Stanford to two bowl victories in two seasons as head coach, took a 49ers team that had finished 2-14 in 1978 and built a Super Bowl champion in just three years. It was one of the most remarkable turnarounds in professional sports history.
His teams would win two more Super Bowls (following the 1984 and 1988 seasons) before he turned the team over to George Seifert, who directed the 49ers to two more championships ('89 and '94). Walsh set the foundation for an unprecedented streak in the NFL of 16 consecutive seasons with at least 10 wins.
(Excerpt) Read more at sfgate.com ...
He passed that one on to Shanahan in Denver.
If you haven’t seen this yet.
Bill Walsh not only revolutionized the game & made it what it is today, but he also knew how to (a) utilize existing talent & (b) pick new players. I refer, of course, to his realization of how to incorporate Joe M into the W/C offense, and his choice of Jerry R from a small college in Miss.
Walsh's Good Guys 27, Satan's minions 0.
Bill Walsh wasn't just an offensive genius and evaluator of talent. He really invented the way to run a modern NFL franchise, and that is something Shanny really did take from him, as did many others.
RIP coach.
Some NFL analyst did this clever “geneology” of current head coaches vis-a-vis offensive styles. It came down to something like three patriarchs, Walsh being one of them.
RIP, Coach. He would dig my Seahawks.
Hey, I'm not complaining! Just stating a fact!
wow. rip.
Walsh maintained that if Cook hadn't suffered that injury that together they would have set records that would have never been broken. No NFL quarterback since '69 has been able to equal Cook's 17.5 yards a completion average. And, again, that was done with a rookie quarterback playing on a second year expansion team. A rookie who had missed training camp. A rookie who played the majority of his games with a tear in the rotator cuff of his throwing shoulder. Absolutely unreal.
Watching the Bengal offense from that '69 season you would never believe you were looking at what was in fact a Bill Walsh offense. It was the complete antithesis of what you saw in San Francisco.
Here here!!
Very sad news! He was a class act, and he did a lot for football. Prayers for his family.
That man gave me and all 49ers fans so much joy and happiness on so many fall weekends and his legacy extended far beyond the 49ers, to so many other teams in the NFL coached by his assistants. Condolences to his family and friends - I’m truly sad about this.
The West Coast offense should be named the Walsh offense. He always seemed to be one step ahead of his opponent. Everybody remembers “The Catch”, but what was equally impressive was “The Drive”. Who would have thought that he would send a broken down tailback like old Rat Daddy Elliott on a couple of end arounds? It showed the weakness of the flex defense. He was a genius.
Yeah, I didn’t even know he was sick. RIP
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