Tuesday, June 28, 2016

Buddy Ryan obit

Buddy Ryan, Combative Defensive Genius in the N.F.L., Dies at 85

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

 

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