Too intellectual to be a winning head coach they said, he only has a finesse style of offense they said, won't win the big one with his style they said, and went able to become a head coach until he was damn near 50, yet today when we watch the NFL, 75% of the offensive plays we see our courtesy of Mr. Walsh. Oh, can't forget to mention that, he was a winning head coach, he won 4 Super Bowls as well with the San Fransisco 49ers, and the whole finesse team that can't get down and dirty in the trenches thing, well, he won 4 rings. The West Coast Offense has become the most popular and most used offense style in the NFL since Walsh made it famous during the 1980's run that his 49er's went on, winning 4 Super Bowls with Joe Montana running the offense to perfection. Walsh helped invent this offense during the mid to late 1970's, when he was an offensive coordinator with the Cincinnati Bengals, the Bengals quarterback at the time Greg Cook, a strong arm quarterback that Walsh said that if he didn't have his career ending shoulder injury Cook would have been a better version of Steve Young, that's a big deal from Walsh. Now with Cook being out for the season, the Bengals and Walsh needed to figure out how to run an offense with their new and not so strong armed quarterback, Virgil Carter. Now this is where Walsh's turn genius began to shine through, not only was he thinking about the quarterbacks physical abilities and limitations, but also about his confidence and making sure that he did everything for Virgil to feel comfortable, to get completions quickly in the game, and to feel like he was good enough to run the offense, and Walsh did just that. Walsh was different man, on a different level than anyone else, not just coaches, but people in general, this guy was more worried about the quarterback foot work on the drop backs then he was about arm strength and speed, why you may say, because Walsh knew if the quarterback simply did what he was told, the receiver would be open, wide open, and he was, everytime. Walsh turned the short pass game to the running backs into the running game, he found, not figured, found that getting the football into the best athletes hands, on his team, as fast as possible paid out higher dividends for his team than running it up the ole gut did. When you run the ball up the middle think about all the heavy hits the running back, the full back, the linemen, everyone really, has to take during those plays, if Walsh could get the ball into say Roger Craig's hands quickly for a couple yard, Craig wouldn't have to take all the bigger hits, he could fall down, not catch the ball, etc, allowing all of his players to remain healthier during the grueling NFL season. Everything meant something with Walsh, not word, no action was ever taken or said that was meaningless or not prior thought about, everything was calculated, always method to his madness. Now when you turn on your T.V. or you computer and watch the NFL today, no matter what game you watch you will be seeing something that was influenced or even created by Bill Walsh, how about Madden, same thing, year in and year out the "West Coast Offense," playbook is one of the most popular and most commonly used playbook, its hard to beat someone who can run it and throw it and doesn't turn the ball over and always is picking up positive yards. Green Bay Packers currently run a west coast style offense, the San Fransisco 49er's, coached by Kyle Shanahan, run the closest thing to Bill Walsh's west coast offense in the NFL today, and we all know and remember how deadly they were late season on offense. Sadly Bill Walsh is no longer with us in our current reality, but he isn't gone for good, no no, the NFL proves it every time you see Mike Tomlin coaching the Pittsburg Steelers, when you hear about a player struggling and the league helping him into recovery, Bill Walsh again, in fact, looking back at it all now, the least important thing Bill Walsh did for the NFL was the West Coast Offense, "Bill Walsh did his part, have you?" - Dr. Harry Edwards.
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