4-Deep-6 Defense

Buddy Ryan, the head coach with the temperament most well suited to his home city in NFL history, has died at the age of 85. Ryan coached the New York Jets defensive line in Super Bowl III and the Minnesota Vikings’ Purple People Eaters. He was then named defensive coordinator of the Chicago Bears where he developed the 46 defense that carried the Bears to victory in Super Bowl XX. Much to Mike Ditka’s chagrin, the Bears then carried Ryan out on their shoulders after pasting the New England Patriots. From there it was on to Philadelphia, where in his second season, during the 1987 strike, Ryan sided with his players and refused to be involved in selecting or coaching the replacement players. The overmatched scab squad endured 3 embarrassing defeats, including a game against the hated Dallas Cowboys where Ryan felt Tom Landry had run up the score. In the first game after the strike, also against the Cowboys, with the Eagles up 30-20, Ryan had Randall Cunningham fake taking a knee, then fire a long TD pass in the closing moments. Funny quotes and hating the Cowboys would only go so far, and in Ryan’s 3rd season, he led the Eagles to the NFC East title for their 1st playoff appearance in 7 years. The Divisional Playoff game was against Chicago and Ryan’s old nemesis Ditka, so the day before the game, he had the team buses circle Soldier Field as a victory lap. The lap was premature as a heavy fog settled over the game, limiting vision to 15 yards and negating Cunningham, the Eagles’ lone offensive weapon, as the Eagles lost 20-12. Two more 1st round playoff exits followed, and Ryan was fired. His next job was defensive coordinator for the Houston Oilers, whose Run and Shoot offense Ryan had previously derided as Chuck and Duck. In the last game of the season, offensive coordinator Kevin Gilbride continued calling passing plays rather than running out the clock. When an ill-advised pass attempt led to a fumble that put his beleaguered defense back on the field, the 62-year-old coach tried to punch Gilbride in the jaw before they were separated. 

All My Dowdy Friends are Here on Monday Night

Frank Gifford, Chuck Bednarik’s favorite tackling dummy, has died at the age of 84. Gifford played 12 seasons for the New York Giants, earning the 1956 MVP en route to leading the Giants to the NFL Championship, his only win in 5 tries. He also missed 18 months when a hard tackle by Bednarik forced a temporary retirement. He brought his distinctive monotone to Monday Night Football, where his 1950s blandness offered a welcome respite from the distinct personalities of Dandy Don Meredith and Howard Cosell. ABC eventually spread his gaffes into their Olympics coverage and Wide World of Sports. Gifford’s playing career also was notable for throwing 6 interceptions, tied for the most by a non-QB in NFL history. Not all his passes went for naught, as in 1997, the Globe thought that getting a video of an NFL broadcaster cheating on his wife with an ex-stewardess was worth $100,000 and set him up, effectively ending his broadcasting career. Unfortunately, it did not have the same effect on his wife Kathie Lee’s. 

Nobody Wants a Charlie in the Box

Or

Concrete Shoes Charlie

Or

Ground Chuck

Chuck Bednarik, star of the last Philadelphia Eagles team to win a championship, has died at the age of 89. The last two-way star of the NFL, his bad assery was legendary, and despite playing on both offense as center and defense as a linebacker for much of his career, he missed just 3 games in 14 seasons – two of those games in his rookie season. In an exhibition game, his bicep tore away from the bone, falling into his forearm. He pulled it back into place and used tape to hold it in place. In a 1960 game, he hit Frank Gifford so hard he missed the rest of the season and the entire 1961 season, and was never the same player. That was also the year the Eagles beat the Green Bay Packers for the NFL Championship – the only title game that Vince Lombardi ever lost. At 35, Bednarilk was the oldest player on either team, but was on the field for 139 of the total 142 plays – 58 of the game’s 60 minutes – and made the game-saving tackle on Packer’s fullback Jim Taylor at the 9-yard-line, holding him on the ground as time expired, before telling Taylor “You can get up now, this fucking game is over.” Bednarik had worked in steel mills growing up, then flew bombing missions over Germany in World War II. Putting the GI Bill to use, he attended the University of Pennsylvania, where he excelled as a center, linebacker and occasional punter, earning All American honors twice, finishing 3rd in the 1948 Heisman trophy voting and winning the Maxwell Award, en route to being the top pick in the 1949 draft. Bednarik was elected to both the College Football and Pro Football Halls of Fame, and he is the namesake for the award given to the Best Collegiate Defensive Player. By extension, he was also the most accomplished concrete salesman in Pennsylvania, his offseason job throughout his time with the Eagles, earning him the nickname Concrete Charlie. Bednarik had little regard for modern NFL players, calling them “pussyfoots” (in his more generous moments), who "suck air after five plays." When Deion Sanders earned comparisons to Bednarik because he played offense and defense as wide receiver and cornerback, Bednarik was incensed and said that he "couldn't tackle my wife Emma." While earning him a bit of a “get these kids off my lawn” reputation, such blunt talk endeared him all the more to Philadelphia fans.

Super Slo Mo

(Props to Greg)
Ed Sabol, whose obsessive approach to covering the NFL meant there were more cameras chronicling the Cleveland Browns’ 7-0 win over the San Francisco 49ers on Dec. 1, 1974 than documented the Allies’ invasion of Normandy, has died at the age of 98. With Sabol at the helm of the company he founded, every angle of every game got the NFL Films touch, with the omnipotent intonations of John Facenda giving untold import to every 3-yard gain. In his 31 years running the show, NFL Films won 52 Emmys, while putting microphones on players, coaches and referees so fans could hear every illegal procedure penalty and groin pull in Sensurround. In 2011, Sabol was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame, which is sort of like sending your wedding videographer on the honeymoon. 

Noll Set

Or

Grounded Chuck

(Props to Mark)
Chuck Noll, the man who stuck football fans everywhere with that moron Terry Bradshaw by building an idiot-proof system en route to 4 Super Bowl wins as the head coach of the Pittsburgh Steelers, has died at the age of 82. In 1969, with Joe Paterno firmly committed as an enabler at Penn State, the woeful Steelers tapped the 1968 NFL Champion Baltimore Colts’ defensive coordinator as their next head coach. The team responded by losing 13 of 14 in his first year. The Steelers’ draft positions put the team in position to rebuild, and every year the Steelers’ draft was a preview of Induction Weekend at the Pro Football Hall of Fame, starting with Joe Greene as Noll’s first pick, and including Terry Bradshaw, Franco Harris, Jack Ham, and the unprecedented or repeated 1974 draft that produced 4 Hall of Famers: Lynn Swann, John Stallworth, Jack Lambert and Mike Webster. Despite his success and unmatched 4 Super Bowl titles, Noll didn’t win Coach of the Year honors until 1989 when he took a team that lost its first 2 games by a combined score of 92-10 to the playoffs, winning its first game. 

Noll Set

Or

Grounded Chuck

(Props to Mark)

Chuck Noll, the man who stuck football fans everywhere with that moron Terry Bradshaw by building an idiot-proof system en route to 4 Super Bowl wins as the head coach of the Pittsburgh Steelers, has died at the age of 82. In 1969, with Joe Paterno firmly committed as an enabler at Penn State, the woeful Steelers tapped the 1968 NFL Champion Baltimore Colts’ defensive coordinator as their next head coach. The team responded by losing 13 of 14 in his first year. The Steelers’ draft positions put the team in position to rebuild, and every year the Steelers’ draft was a preview of Induction Weekend at the Pro Football Hall of Fame, starting with Joe Greene as Noll’s first pick, and including Terry Bradshaw, Franco Harris, Jack Ham, and the unprecedented or repeated 1974 draft that produced 4 Hall of Famers: Lynn Swann, John Stallworth, Jack Lambert and Mike Webster. Despite his success and unmatched 4 Super Bowl titles, Noll didn’t win Coach of the Year honors until 1989 when he took a team that lost its first 2 games by a combined score of 92-10 to the playoffs, winning its first game.

The Grass Is Always be on Greenwood

Steel Curtains for another member of the Pittsburgh Steelers’ vaunted defense, as defensive end LC Greenwood has died of kidney failure at the age of 67. A 10th round pick out of nowhere (Arkansas AM&N, now Arkansas-Pine Bluff ), within 2 years he was a starter, and an All-Pro in 5. The 6-time Pro Bowler, 5-time All-AFC and 4-time champion, resplendent in his gold shoes, was nonetheless overshadowed by his teammates, and was denied twice as a finalist for the Hall of Fame.

Turn out the lights, the Pardee’s over

Jack Pardee, the Don King of NFL head coaches, has died of gall bladder cancer at the age of 76. Pardee started in Coach Bear Bryant’s infamous “Junction Boys” camp at Texas A&M and after being one of only 35 (from 100 who entered) to survive the 10 days of brutal drills in oppressive heat, he emerged as a College Football Hall of Fame linebacker and fullback. After a 13-year pro career that included 2 All-Pro seasons, he had stints coaching the Chicago Bears, returning the Bears to the playoffs for the first time since George Halas, and Washington Redskins, where he won Coach of the Year honors, but never made the playoffs. He returned to the college game as a coach at the University of Houston, employing a Run and Shoot offense that netted Andre Ware a Heisman Trophy. In the NFL, he made the playoffs 4 years in a row with the Houston Oilers, making Warren Moon a star, but is probably best remembered for arranging sideline fisticuffs by putting Buddy Ryan and Kevin Gilbride on the same coaching staff. In addition to the NCAA and NFL, Pardee also was a head coach in the USFL (1984-85 Houston Gamblers, 1986 New Jersey Generals), World Football League (1974 Washington Ambassadors/Virginia Ambassadors/Florida Blazers) and the Canadian Football League (1995 Birmingham Barracudas), making him the only man to get second-guessed in such a varied collection of sports leagues.

Scythe in Time Takes Nine

Matriculating the ball through the pearly gates
(Shared epitaphany with Craig)

Or
Sideline Flatline
Hank Stram, former Hall of Fame coach of the Kansas City Chiefs, has died at the age of 82. An innovator widely credited with the moving pocket for the quarterback, the two tight-end set and the stacked defense, Stram was the winningest coach in the history of the American Football League. His win with Kansas City in Super Bowl IV both further established the AFL teams as worth adversaries for their NFL counterparts and secured his own legend. The animated coach was the first to be miked for a Super Bowl and his running commentary, including the malaprop “Let’s matriculate the ball down the field,” became fixtures in NFL Films highlights retrospectives. Stram also won AFL titles in 1962, 1966 and 1969, losing the first Super Bowl to the Green Bay Packers. After his coaching career, he became a television and radio analyst with an awful toupee and a knack for accurately predicting a team’s next play.

Mr. Outside the Ethereal Plane

Heisman Trophy winner Glenn Davis has died at the age of 80. As Mr. Outside paired with Doc Blanchard’s Mr. Inside in the days when it took Army a season, rather than a decade, to win 10 games, Davis led the Cadets to national championships in 1944, 1945 and a shared title in 1946. Davis finished his time at West Point with 59 touchdowns and 4,129 yards, winning the Heisman Award in 1946 after finishing second in 1944 and 1945. Davis also helped the Los Angeles Rams to the NFL title in 1951 before a knee injury ended his career in 1952.

Coffin corner kicker

Long-time NFL punter and cookie magnate Reggie Roby has died at the age of 43. I couldn’t put it any better, so without permission, I’m stealing Mark’s tribute. He hasn’t paid up yet, so he really shouldn’t complain. Roby had a long and highly successful career as a punter in the NFL, and even though he played many years for the hated Miami Dolphins, I always enjoyed watching Roby kick. Not only did he have tremendous leg extension – often looking like he was going to knee himself in the face - but his punts had amazing hang time. As has been often mentioned in articles about him, Roby liked to wear a watch during games so he could measure hang time. Don Shula also noted that when the Dolphins played in domed stadiums, Roby liked to try to hit the roof with a punt, and was successful more than once. Roby did something that none of the guys who punt today can do - make punting fun to watch.