R.I.P. Bill Walsh

[RacersEdge]

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Interesting how he got the WC offense started in Cincy originally with a QB named Virgil Carter who couldn't really throw deep - and that he favored his ex_QB at Stanford over Montana in 1979.

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Steve DeBerg was the starting QB in 1979, and he played at San Jose State, not Stanford. DeBerg had a very good grasp of Walsh's offense, but had a below average arm and tended to throw the big interception late in games. Kind of a weird situation occured in the third week of the 1980 season, when DeBerg developed laryngitis and wasn't able to properly make the snap count at the line. The Niners got permission from the league to mount a loudspeaker to the back of DeBerg's shoulderpads. At one point during the game the Niner's had the ball deep in Jets territory and DeBerg came running off the field with his helmet in his hands gesturing that the speaker system wasn't working. In came the much more mobile Montana who promptly ran a naked bootleg 20 yards for the score. After the game Walsh admitted that the speaker failure was faked and that exact scenario had been planned for in advance, kind of Walsh's way of letting Montana experience success without putting any pressure on him.

Montana took over the starting job for good midway through the 1980 season and DeBerg was traded to the Broncos that offseason (where he became the guy that John Elway replaced.) Guy Benjamin, who did QB for Walsh at Stanford, was Montana's backup during the Superbowl season in 1981.

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Cool story about Deberg and the microphone. The QB I was referring to though was literally Walsh's QB when he was at Stanford - something like "Dils". I don't even know if he ever made an NFL team as a starter.

[Double Eagle]

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Cool story about Deberg and the microphone. The QB I was referring to though was literally Walsh's QB when he was at Stanford - something like "Dils". I don't even know if he ever made an NFL team as a starter.

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Steve Dils played for a number of years and was pretty much a career backup. He was drafted in the fourth round by the Vikings in '79, so very unlikely that Walsh had him rated higher than Montana.

[NajdorfDefense]

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Interesting how he got the WC offense started in Cincy originally with a QB named Virgil Carter who couldn't really throw deep - and that he favored his ex_QB at Stanford over Montana in 1979.

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Steve DeBerg was the starting QB in 1979,

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Yeah, he meant Carter at Cinci, and then Steve Dils over Montana in the draft.

[RyanUSF]

Not only was he an amazing coach and motivator, but he was the best damn developer and evaluator of football talent that the game has ever seen (and will ever see). In an age where scouts, coaches, and general managers look at players and say "he doesn't run a fast enough 40," instead of "hey this guy runs great routes and has a terrific work ethic," Walsh had a knack for noticing and projecting what players COULD do for the team, and instilling that belief in the players themselves. In doing so he found guys like Joe Montana, Steve Young, Jeff Garcia, Roger Craig, everyone from the '86 draft, the list goes on forever.

As a lifelong 49er fan, I will miss him a lot, RIP Bill.

[AngusThermopyle]

Page with link to audio of Walsh's last radio interview

[andnow]

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I'm sure this will be mentioned in the subsequent stories, and probably already has been, but if you were to make a family tree of all Walsh's protege's and assistants, it would encompass a huge percentage of the current NFL coaching staffs.

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Credit Wikipedia:



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This says it all.

Walsh has been the greatest influence in the history of the NFL.

He will be missed. R.I.P Mr. Walsh, the greatest mind football has ever seen.

[SuperUberBob]

More than half of the current NFL head coaches are attached to Walsh's coaching tree. That is just sick.

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if anyone get SJ Mercury today, they had a sick graph showing that chart above (w/ illustrations obv). The sick thing is, the wiki chart forgot another coach linked to Walsh. He is no other than Mike Nolan (current HC of 49ers DUH) who worked under Billick who worked under Green who worked under Walsh

OMG it's a complete cycle.

RETURN TO THE GLORY!!

[Double Eagle]

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Not only was he an amazing coach and motivator, but he was the best damn developer and evaluator of football talent that the game has ever seen (and will ever see). In an age where scouts, coaches, and general managers look at players and say "he doesn't run a fast enough 40," instead of "hey this guy runs great routes and has a terrific work ethic," Walsh had a knack for noticing and projecting what players COULD do for the team, and instilling that belief in the players themselves. In doing so he found guys like Joe Montana, Steve Young, Jeff Garcia, Roger Craig, everyone from the '86 draft, the list goes on forever.

As a lifelong 49er fan, I will miss him a lot, RIP Bill.

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Article by Ira Miller about the '86 draft.

[Bill Murphy]

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The Colts brought him in to look at Manning & Leaf in '98. After a little while he said "Manning, and it's not close".



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Googletard am I. Guess I was a little emotional when I posted that. At best, it appears Walsh never said that. At worst, he may have fallen into the "short-term impact/long-term potential" trap and recommended Leaf; or else the "Andre Wadsworth or Charles Woodson(LOL)/Griese in the 2nd round" scenario someone mentioned, and which, sigh, I also thought at the time Colts should have strongly considered. My bad, sorry.

Props to Bill Polian. Occam's Razor FTW.

WTF, even the best get one wrong once in awhile. Walsh could prolly get in the HOF if he had retired after the 1986 Draft, which along with the Steelers' 1974 Draft, will likely never be equaled.