He was not on the list.
Buddy Ryan, pro football’s famously combative defensive
innovator, who helped propel the Jets and the Chicago Bears to Super Bowl
championships, died on Tuesday in Shelbyville, Ky. Although listed as 82 in
some accounts, he was 85.
His death was confirmed by the Buffalo Bills; Rex, the
former Jets’ head coach, is now their head coach, and his twin, Rob, is an
assistant with the team.
James Solano, Buddy Ryan’s agent, said that Ryan owned a
ranch in Shelbyville. He had been treated for cancer in recent years.
In his seven years as a head coach, with the Philadelphia
Eagles and Arizona Cardinals, Ryan never won a playoff game. But he had already
solidified his legacy as an assistant coach with his shifting and blitzing
defensive alignments, which confused and clobbered opposing quarterbacks. His
bruising “46” defense, in particular, took the Bears to their 1986 Super Bowl
victory.
For all his football intellect, Ryan embraced pure
aggression.
“It got mean, cruel,” defensive end Gerry Philbin, who
played under Ryan at the University at Buffalo and on the Jets, once told
Sports Illustrated. “I’ve never seen anyone better at bringing the animal out
of you. If you didn’t hit as hard as he wanted, he’d humiliate you in front of
everyone. Guys like me loved him, though. He was just so brutally honest.”
When Ryan became the Eagles’ head coach in 1986 and
subjected his players to punishing drills in training camp, he spoke of his
mind-set.
“They probably think I’m a no-good so-and-so,” he told The
New York Times. “But that’s all right. That breeds closeness as a team. That
way they can all dislike the same guy.”
His son Rex, having earned a reputation for brashness in his
own right while coaching the Jets from 2009 to 2014, wrote in a memoir, “Play
Like You Mean It” (2011), that he grew up “wanting to be Buddy Ryan,” though he
acknowledged that his father “was a little over the top from time to time.”
While he was the Bears’ defensive coordinator, Buddy Ryan
largely ignored Mike Ditka, his presumed boss as the head coach, concluding
that Ditka, once a brilliant tight end, knew nothing about defense. In 1985 they
almost came to blows in the locker room during halftime of the Bears’ loss to
the Miami Dolphins, the team’s only defeat that season.
In 1989, the Cowboys accused Ryan of offering bounties of a
few hundred dollars to any of his Eagles players who knocked the Dallas kicker,
Luis Zendejas, and quarterback Troy Aikman out of the Thanksgiving Day game,
which Philadelphia won 27-0. Both players were roughed up in the game.
Zendejas, who had previously been cut by the Eagles, called
Ryan “the fat little guy” and denounced him as essentially a coward. Ryan, a
bit paunchy and bespectacled, denied offering bounties, and a league
investigation could not substantiate the accusations.
When Ryan was the Houston Oilers’ defensive coordinator in
1993, he punched the team’s offensive coordinator, Kevin Gilbride, in the face
during a playoff game against the Jets, incensed that Gilbride’s disdain for
ball control kept Ryan’s defenders on the field too long.
Ryan broke into professional football as the defensive line
coach for the 1968 Jets, who shocked the football world and provided
credibility for their American Football League by upsetting the N.F.L.’s
Baltimore Colts in Super Bowl III.
Working with Walt Michaels, the Jets’ defensive coordinator,
Ryan developed the seeds of his “46” defense. That scheme flourished with the
1985 Bears, who went 15-1 in the regular season, won two playoff games by
shutouts and routed the New England Patriots, 46-10, in the Super Bowl.
Named for the hard-nosed and frequently blitzing safety Doug
Plank, who wore No. 46 playing for the Bears in Ryan’s first few seasons as
defensive coordinator, the plan put as many as eight men on the defensive line
to foil the opponents’ blocking plays, and it sprang blitzes by just about
anyone. The aim was to pressure the opposing quarterback or knock him out of
the game.
Ryan hoped to find out “who the second-string quarterback
was,” he said.
N.F.L. teams eventually developed spread offenses to counter
the “46,” which featured stars like Mike Singletary, Dan Hampton and Richard
Dent, but the alignment survives in various forms.
Ron Jaworski, a former N.F.L. quarterback and an ESPN
commentator, wrote in his book “The Games That Changed the Game” (2010, with
David Plaut and Greg Cosell) that Ryan’s “46” was “the single most influential
factor in shaping modern NFL blitz pressure packages.”
James David Ryan was born on Feb. 17, 1931, in Frederick,
Okla., where his father was a house painter. (His birth year was often listed
as 1934; as Rex Ryan said in his memoir, his father had subtracted a few years
from his true age to come off as more youthful when first looking for an N.F.L.
job.)
Buddy Ryan served in combat as a master sergeant during the
Korean War, then played guard at Oklahoma A&M (now Oklahoma State) and
coached high school football in Texas.
He was an assistant coach at the University at Buffalo,
Vanderbilt and the University of the Pacific before joining the New York Jets’ staff
under Coach Weeb Ewbank.
Following eight years with the Jets, Ryan was an assistant
to Coach Bud Grant for two seasons with the Minnesota Vikings, overseeing the
Purple People Eaters defense that helped take the Vikings to the 1977 Super
Bowl, where they lost to the Oakland Raiders.
In 1978, George Halas brought in Ryan as defensive
coordinator. With the Bears, Ryan created the 46 defense, named after then
Bears safety Doug Plank, but it wasn't until 1981 that the scheme was
perfected. This was due in large part to Mike Singletary's ability to
single-handedly dominate the middle of the field. The defensive players were so
loyal to Ryan that when Bears head coach Neill Armstrong was fired in 1982, the
defensive players urged owner George Halas to name Ryan head coach or at least
have the new coach keep Ryan as defensive coordinator. Ultimately, Mike Ditka
was hired as the head coach. Ryan and Ditka "feuded openly", though
Ditka mostly left the defense in Ryan's hands "Ditka challenged Ryan to a
fight during halftime" of the Bears' 1985 matchup versus the Miami
Dolphins, with the team at 12–0 and trailing 31–10 in a nationally televised
Monday Night Football broadcast. "The guys on the team had to separate
them—the offense getting Ditka away from Ryan and defensive guys holding
Buddy." The Bears went on to lose the game 38–24, which was their only
loss of the season. However, the team would go on to Super Bowl XX where they
would dominate the New England Patriots 46–10. The Bears defense carried Ryan
off the field on their shoulders "...right behind Mike Ditka", who
was also being carried off the field. This was the first time two coaches were
ever carried off the field at the Super Bowl.
The Bears defense set several NFL records in 1985, and led
the league in turnovers forced and surrendered the fewest yards, points, and
first downs.
That offseason, Ryan was hired by the Philadelphia Eagles as
their head coach. Ryan released running back Earnest Jackson, who had rushed
for more than 1,000 yards in both of the previous two seasons, and limited the
playing time of veteran quarterback Ron Jaworski. Ryan coached players such as
Randall Cunningham, Reggie White, and Andre Waters and drafted Pro Bowlers Seth
Joyner, Clyde Simmons, Jerome Brown, Eric Allen, Cris Carter, Fred Barnett, and
Keith Jackson. The Eagles made the playoffs in 1988, 1989, and 1990.
On October 25, 1987, he came under fire after a game against
the Dallas Cowboys by scoring a touchdown in the final seconds, when the
outcome was no longer in doubt. This was apparently Ryan's revenge against
Dallas head coach Tom Landry, who Ryan felt had run up the score against the
Eagles' replacement players during the 1987 players' strike, using many of the
Cowboys players that had crossed the picket line.[25] The controversy marred a
season in which the Eagles improved to 7-8, which included a 31-27 win over the
eventual Super Bowl champion Redskins at Veterans Stadium.
Members of the vaulted 1985 Bears defense include Wilbur Marshall, Otis Wilson, Mike Singletary, Dave Duerson, Gary Fencik, William "the Refrigerator" Perry, Dan Hampton, Richard Dent, Steve McMichael, Shaun Gayle, Leslie Frazier, Mike Richardson and Ron Rivera. The team had an adequate offense led by Walter Payton, Jim McMahon, Jimbo Covert, Kevin Butler, Matt Suhey, Steve Fuller, Willie Gault, Tom Thayer, Mark Bortz, Keith Van Horne and Jay Hilgenburg.
Players who played for Ryan with the Eagles and Cardinals of note were: Keith Byars, Randall Cunningham, Anthony Toney, Seth Joyner, Clyde Simmons, Ron Jaworski, Matt Cavanaugh, Mike Quick, Reggie White, John Spagnola, Bobby Duckworth, Wes Hopkins, Jerome Brown, Chris Carter, Jimmie Giles, Andre Waters, Todd Bell, Keith Jackson, Eric Allen, Dave Rimington, Roger Ruzek, Mike Golic, Ron Hellar, Terry Hoage, Jeff Feagles, Aeneas Williams, Jamir Miller, Steve Beuerlein, Larry
Centers, Gary Clark, Jay Schroeder, Garrison Hearst, Eric Swann,
Dave Krieg and Rob Moore.
As a coach:
Univ. of Buffalo
(1961–1965)
Defensive line
coach
Pacific (1966)
Defensive line
coach
Vanderbilt (1967)
Defensive line
coach
New York Jets
(1968–1975)
Defensive line
coach
Minnesota Vikings
(1976–1977)
Defensive line
coach
Chicago Bears
(1978–1985)
Defensive
coordinator
Philadelphia
Eagles (1986–1990)
Head coach
Houston Oilers
(1993)
Defensive
coordinator
Arizona Cardinals
(1994–1995)
Head coach
