Though this is not a football forum, I felt that something should be said about the death of Bill Walsh and what he did for football.
It now just boggles the mind that this innovative football coach waited until his forty-seventh year before anyone took a chance on him to coach their football team in the NFL. While he benefitted from having great teachers to help him hone his offensive coaching skills, no one could have predicted just how much of an impact Walsh was going to have on their game - a game that was pretty much established on how it was supposed to be played after sixty years of experimentations up to that time.
Then Walsh got his chance to work on his offense with the one thing he probably would never have had anywhere but in San Francisco - an ownership/management group that allowed him to develop this new idea.
As a long-time Raider fan, I was always amused to observe the comical flubbings across the bay of their so-called Forty-niner rivals and neighbors, who for years could do nothing close to right on the football field. It bears mentioning because it is very unlikely that Carmen Policy and Eddie DeBartolo would have allowed the innovations proposed by Walsh otherwise. But desparation calls for desparate measures, so when Walsh interviewed with them and proposed changing the way offensive football could be played, they listened, and said, "What have we got to lose?"
At first, just as many football games as before -14, to be exact, the same as the year before.
But even die-hard Raider fans like myself (who still appreciated watching good football, and I always would watch the Niners play back then), could not help but start to notice that, though they still lost the games, the Niners were suddenly scoring much more regularly then ever before. Games were now 30-24 instead of 40-3, but still.....
JoMal started to noticed things. The Niners were playing with much more confidence then before. The eyes of the defenders who faced this new offensive phenomenon were looking a little more deer-in-the-headlights like when facing this team.
What JoMal mostly remembers are the commentators for these early Walsh-coached teams. They ridiculed the innovations, calling it misguided and easily stoppable and a novalty that will quickly be crushed by Bear, Viking, Cowboy, and Giant defenses that will just wear them down. After a while, they started to ponder why this was not happening, but what the hay, Niner games were still a victory for these supposedly much better teams, regardless of how close the Vikings/Giants/Bears/Cowboys would "allow" the outcome to be. The Rams simply mocked the Niners, as always.
The following year showed more improvement, as the Niners won six times. Now, commentators were getting a bit concerned but still they mocked what Walsh was doing. What they really failed to consider was - What if the Niners were to suddenly get some quality defensive players? Even with mediocre offensive players, Walsh's Niners were scoring almost at will, which just did not make any sense to the announcer of these games.
Then came 1981 and the coming of Joe Montana and company. That year's draft provided a ton of those quality defenders the Niners had been needing, and the Rams - THE RAMS - allowed Jack, "Hacksaw" Reynolds to leave due to his advanced age. Walsh snapped him up and that dormant Niner defense had its leader. Teams that played the Niners that year were consistantly down 14-0 after the first quarter. News came out that Walsh was scripting the first 15 plays on offense regardless of what the defenses were doing. Those announcers and commentators once again had something to mock about Walsh. NO ONE would script the first fifteen plays of offense!!!!! That was just stupid because how could you take advantage of what these defenses were doing? How could Walsh's Niners be up by two touchdowns against so-called better teams - EVERY GAME?
How could this weird San Francisco OFFENSE be dictating to DEFENSES, and causing them to play back on their heals from the start?
The commentators started peeing in their pants regularly when they had to analyze San Francisco Niner games. This was not the football they were used to, so it had to be stopped THIS WEEK, by <insert losing team name here>. But after one quarter, they were left pondering what they had just seen, though the reinactment of these first quarters was becoming very commonplace as the season progressed.
JoMal made a prediction early that season. To whomever would listen, JoMal would state "The Niners are going to the Super Bowl this year". He said it many times, to many people, and when asked why he thought so, when Dallas or the Bears, or the Vikings would clearly crush them in the playoffs, JoMal would smugly answer, "Because whatever it is that Walsh is doing on offense, these teams have never seen anything like it and they have not been able to adapt, and they won't until they get a different type of defensive player". Okay, maybe JoMal was not
THAT brilliantly insightful, but still.... JoMal
DID predict a long playoff run for the Niners.
The commentators continued to fight this new offense tooth and nail. It flew in the face of every football expert to ever think they knew everything that could occur on a football field. Setting up the run by, <gulp>, PASSING the ball? No, uh uh, can't be done. And these timing patterns!!!! Give us a break!!! Such a sissy style of football. Forcing the defenses to stay on the field, eating up the clock, then seemingly always getting points at the end. Other teams were constantly being forced to play catch-up, and the Niner defense was able to control these games easier because of it. Reynolds molded his rookies into football players, telling them what to expect and placing them in the way. It consistently worked.
But it was not until "The Catch" and the Dallas playoff game that it finally dawned on the commentators that they actually were witnessing the changing of their game forever. Walsh's timing offense moved the ball every single play. It was going to be nearly ten years before defenses started to figure it out and draft bigger, faster linebackers who could cover tight ends and receivers, because Walsh just exploited these linebacker matchups like a hot knife through butter.
Bill Walsh not only introduced the hottest new offense the game has seen since its founding, but caused defenses to change to counter it. His legacy is one we may never see again in the game of football, and I, for one, have enjoyed watching his game so much more as a result.
JoMal will greatly miss this guy.
