GMU – The Digital Past

BILL WALSH

You can call it luck or destiny, but the moment Bill Walsh entered the world of professional football, a path was cleared for him to change the game forever.  It began in 1966 when Bill Walsh went to work for the Oakland Raiders, where he became specialized in vertical passing offense while training with Raider’s head coach, Al Davis.  Two years later when Walsh was named quarterback coordinator for the Cincinnati Bengals, he had to put his specialized training to use.  Walsh had to adapt a system to accommodate the Bengals’ newest player, Virgil Carter, a quarterback Cincinnati had acquired in a 1969 trade with the Chicago Bears.  The problem with Carter was that despite his stellar agility and accuracy in throws, he lacked strength.  Bill Walsh began to develop what later became the West Coast Offense (WCO), a variation of the vertical passing offense in Oakland.  The WCO highlighted Virgil Carter’s strengths by allowing him to make short passes, with a larger range of open wide receivers, with less dependence on defensive blocking, and no deep pass requirement.  He spent eight seasons with the Bengals until he departed in 1977 to become Stanford football’s head coach.  Walsh took one year to implement West Coast Offense into the Stanford team and brought them to two championships in the two seasons that he spent with them.  This was just the beginning of the Reign of Bill Walsh and the West Coast Offense.  Because what followed Cincinnati and Stanford is what made Bill Walsh a household name.
Walsh was appointed head coach of the San Francisco 49ers in 1979.  He had acquired a team that had gone 2 and 14 in the previous year and would go on to repeat the dismal season in 1979, his first year with San Francisco.  Things turned around when he found what the West Coast Offense had been missing to bring it success in the pros.  Walsh drafted Joe Montana in 1979 and immediately started him at the center of the WCO in 1980.  The combination of a quick, effective strategy and a dynamic quarterback, proved to be successful as the 49ers won their first Super Bowl under Bill Walsh just two years after he had been appointed.  It also proved to be a deadly combination as Bill Walsh and the 49ers acquired three more championship rings in 1981, 1984, and 1988.  He continued to build a formidable offensive line in San Francisco by drafting the likes of Ronnie Lott, Charles Haley, Jerry Rice, and Steve Young.  Power moves like the implementation of the West Coast Offense and the smart drafts of underrated, but talented athletes, marked Bill Walsh down as one of the most intelligent and innovative coaches and offensive coordinators in NFL history.  Not only did Walsh develop a foolproof way to win, he revolutionized the way coaches and players interact with each and on the field, in turn changing the game into what it is today.

BILL WALSH COACHING TREE

Bill Walsh and his offensive strategy is still prevalent in modern football.  The Bill Walsh coaching tree below depicts the assistants and future head coaches that trained under a specialized offensive strategy.  The names boxed in red are the coaches that headed teams that went on to win Super Bowl Championships.  The blue boxes denote coaches that led teams to Super Bowl appearances.  All of the coaches in this tree utilize West Coast Offense or offensive centered strategies with their teams.  22 of the 33 coaches listed have made championship victories and/or appearances.  The trend is unwavering as the number of offensive based teams in the championship hasn’t diminished since the inception of the Super Bowl and the implementation of the West Coast Offense.

WEST COAST OFFENSE

The West Coast Offense is a strategy that implements various formations and plays that focuses on spreading both defensive and offensive lines in order to increase the number of potential receivers on the field at once as well as increase the duration of a play or pass.  A traditional offense runs on a vertical tangent, the goal in theory is to open up as many perpendicular passing lanes as possible to gain more yards.  This allows for a defensive line to train for one possible scenario in which the offensive line will be making vertical runs to the end zone.  Bill Walsh wanted a variety of options in offensive play on the field as he concentrated the formation around the quarterback and the wide receiver.  With unconventional offensive layouts that generally toted imbalance and little dependence on a defensive line, Bill Walsh developed the theory of “pass first, run later” in football.

In order to run WCO successfully, there are some key players with specialized skills that are required on a team.  Because dependence has shifted from the defensive line to the quarterback, an ideal player to centralize the WCO would be an intelligent QB who is quick physically and intelligently.  With less defensive backing for the QB, he finds himself more often than not in rapid closing proximity to the opposing team.  In the short span of time, the WCO quarterback must make a snap decision as to which of the five available receivers on the field would gain the most yards.  The QB also has the option to act as a runner when the opposing defense is covering the wide receiving line carefully.  That being said, those are the two sole options given to the quarterback that allow the WCO to work successfully, so the player is now limited in creative play, and must follow the strategy to the tee.  The other half of a WCO team is a receiver that plays well in the face of an aggressive opposing defense.  Wide receivers must be quick as well as large to allow each catches in close proximity to large defensemen.  The development of a specialized player in offensive playing has affected the way young, aspiring athletes train and how professional teams are built.

SAN FRANCISCO 49ERS

The 1981 San Francisco 49ers under Bill Walsh turned football around for coaches and prospective players everywhere.  With only the West Coast Offense in mind, Walsh developed a defensive line that consisted of an odd mix of rookies and veterans.  The ’81 49ers depended on defensemen, Fred Dean, Carlton Williamson, Ronnie Lott, and Eric Wright.  All headed up by a young, specialized offensive line of Joe Montana, Dwight Clark, Randy Cross, and Charle Young.  The four championships won by the 49ers in the 1980s spurred young athletes everywhere to train with the goal of agility, strategic comprehension, and exceptional catching ability.  The ideal qualities of just large, strong, and brute strength were no longer viable in a successful team, a team now needed the likes of Joe Montana and Jerry Rice, quick, intelligent, and lithe.

RESULTS

When referring to the map below, please click the full screen option in the top right hand corner to navigate.  As you observe the map,  you can see that that is just the beginning of the movement of the West Coast Offense.  Seeing its success and obvious results, teams across the NFL began adopting the WCO and developing offensive variations of the popular strategy.  Teams that have utilized West Coast Offense in the late 20th to early 21st century are of course the San Francisco 49ers, Seattle Seahawks, Philadelphia Eagles, Green Bay Packers, Tampa Bay Buccaneers, Denver Broncos, Minnesota Vikings, Houston Texans, Atlanta Falcons, Washington Redskins, Oakland Raiders, Cincinnati Bengals, and Cleveland Browns.  Not to mention the countless number of college football teams that implement WCO to train specialized quarterbacks for the demands of an NFL offensive line.

To give perspective as to how successful the centralized offensive strategy is in football history, let’s observe the strategies of the Super Bowl Champions between 1981-2000.  12 of the 19 teams that won the Super Bowl between 1981 and 2000 utilized West Coast Offense or depended on a varied offensive strategy.

MODERN FOOTBALL

So it’s pretty obvious that a strong offensive strategy coupled with strong athletes guarantees a Super Bowl Ring.  There’s no argument about whether or not the West Coast Offense worked or whether it is a good or bad strategy. It was good, and it worked.  That is a common and accepted theory.  The argument here is how all the events of Bill Walsh’s journey through the NFL, the 49er’s 1980s Super Bowl run, and the continued success of the coaching tree has developed the modern athlete and the game as we see it today.

 

It’s safe to say that we can separate football into two distinct eras.  In the early years of the NFL the game was dominated by man-against-man styles of north and south running games.  The league was centered around the workhorse runningback; players like Walter Payton, Jim Brown, and Earl Campbell personified the bloody-nosed, iron man football player.  In the 80’s and 90’s, the game was changed by the introduction of a more wide-open approach, relying more heavily on the coach and his quarterback.

 

Bill Walsh’s scheme relied heavily on quick decision making and delegation of responsibilities on the field.  In team meetings, he trusted Joe Montana so much, that he never said his name when outlining his responsibilities, while making sure to designate every other players’ roles.  This style soon spread to John Elway in Denver, Brett Favre in Green Bay, and Matt Hasselbeck in Seattle, all three making appearances in the Super Bowl.

 

There is no doubt that the relationship between the head coach and the franchise quarterback is the determining factor behind a team’s success in today’s NFL.  Mark Sanchez and Rex Ryan has failed miserably because of the lack of ability to trust Sanchez and his decision-making on the field.  On the contrary, Tom Brady and Peyton Manning have made hall of fame careers based on being able to make their own calls on the field.  Their head coaches centered their teams around them, and found success, ending up with 7 Super Bowl appearances in the 2000’s.

 

The wide open passing game that we see on TV every Sunday is a direct result of Bill Walsh’s success and his revolutionary concepts combining the quick passing game and the mobile quarterback.  The shift in offensive philosophy is directly correlated with not only his success in San Francisco, but the success of his disciples in the following decades.

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