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2016-2017 Offseason: Few Finer Than This Defensive
Designer
- June 28,
2016
At 10:27 AM CST
By Eric M. Scharf
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- James David "Buddy" Ryan father of
Rex, Rob, and the famed 46 defense passed away earlier today.
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- Dallas Cowboys fans will have
(mildly?) mixed
feelings about this man who detested the entitled air with which
so many Cowboys teams showed their flair . . . even during some down years when
"America's Team" was showing its age and grinding
its gears.
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- Older NFL fans will remember Ryan
for designing key blitz packages to keep the Baltimore Colts' Johnny
Unitas on his toes in Super Bowl III while the Jets' "Broadway
Joe" Namath made just enough throws to keep his guarantee to New
York City.
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- Still other NFL fans will recall
Ryan being the architect of the potent "Purple People Eaters" as
defensive line coach of the Minnesota Vikings . . . and what he
began there would eventually prove the conceptual basis of the most
successful of his defensive stylings.
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- While most of Cowboys Nation will
choose to remember his time as a cockroach, err, head coach, Ryan's long-term
affect on "America's Team" began years earlier when Dallas was
(unknowingly) entering a painful transition . . . and a certain
Chicago Bears team was showing the entire NFL it was far superior.
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- The Tortured Cowboys Fan has vivid
memories of a particularly chippy 15-13 preseason Cowboys' victory over
the "Monsters Of The Midway" in 1985 . . . following the first quarter ejection of
defensive tackle Randy Manster White for ripping Bears
offensive tackle Keith Van Horne's helmet off to bash Bears guard Mark Bortz (not
pictured below) in the head. Bortz
was still wearing his own helmet, or he might have wound up dead.
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- Bears defensive end Dan Hampton was overheard
saying something to the tune of "You better bring a meat wagon next
time (we play)!" The Manster who was already well-versed in Wing
Chun, Jeet Kune Do, and the Filipino martial arts was ready to go . . . all the way.
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- The next time the two teams faced off was game 11 of that same season. The Bears were 10-0 and
the Cowboys were 7-3. When the contest was done, Chicago was
enjoying an incredible 44-0 victory, and Dallas was having entirely
no fun. The meat wagon had, indeed, arrived . . . and the Bears had
feasted and thrived.
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- The Cowboys were (further) exposed as an
opportunistic, finesse team stuck in a brutal nightmare that made
their previous exhibition victory an absolute dream. The Bears rushed
for over 200 yards, collected five turnovers, and twice knocked Danny White
out of the game, leaving Gary Hogeboom to finish the merciless
exercise in doom and gloom.
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- The Tortured Cowboys Fan calls it
like it is and Dallas (for all but the first scoreless ten minutes
of the contest) got smeared across
the Texas Stadium turf . . . by a Bears team performing as if it was
merely playing with a Nerf.
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- Buddy Ryan the Bears' defensive
coordinator at the time had a collection of defensive talents in
their prime . . . and had his finger prints (as inventor of the
famed 46 defense) all
over that result. Following a resounding Super Bowl victory later
that year . . . he determined he could no longer coexist with "Iron
Mike" Ditka and to a head coaching opportunity with the vile Philadelphia
Eagles he would bolt. He would spend his entire tenure there
(1986-1990) doing everything he could to generate among the
Cowboys' faithful a deep(er hatred and) fear.
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- The 1987 strike-shortened season was
critical towards further stoking the fires so great . . . between
Landry's Cowboys and Ryan's fine-feathered fiends from the "City Of
Brotherly Hate." The NFL Players Association (NFLPA) had gone on
strike after the second game of the season and their roles had been
assumed by "scabs" or replacement players (primarily preseason cut
victims and former USFL'ers). The NFLPA unlike stronger unions in
other major pro sports like MLB and the NBA splintered early and
did not have a prayer.
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- Landry welcomed back a number of familiar
faces (who crossed the picket line like Randy White) to give the
Cowboys an (unfair) advantage against Ryan's replacement squad in
their next NFC East fight. Dallas won 41-22, and Ryan believed in
an already screwed up strike-shortened season Landry had run up
the score for no good reason. Ryan and his 'real' players got
revenge the
following week . . . and thus began a consecutive victories mean
streak.
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- The painful transition mentioned
earlier would involve a depressing end in 1988 to the (formerly
immortal) Tex Schramm / Tom Landry / Gil Brandt era . . . and the
(jarring) arrival of the Jerry Jones / Jimmy Johnson partnership to
the Dallas / Fort Worth area. While Cowboys Nation would soon grow
to appreciate the winning results of the new management rind, Buddy Ryan
still had a bloody axe to grind.
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- There would be plenty more . . .
with Ryan doing anything he could to settle the (never-ending)
score.
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- "Bounty Bowl I" had the rebuilding
Cowboys suffering a 27-0 blowout on Thanksgiving Day in 1989 . . .
and it was anything but fine. Jimmy Johnson alleged no, insisted
Ryan (so horribly twisted) had economically encouraged his defense
to take out future star quarterback Troy Aikman and kicker Luis
Zendejas to put a bow on the expected loss. He wanted to 'kick' the
Cowboys while they were down and remind them who (at the time) was
boss.
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- "Bounty Bowl II" was a
20-10 December loss to the Eagles in that same year. The ice-ball-chucking Philly fans would not have remembered
too much about their poor behavior, overwhelmed by so much beer.
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- Cowboys Nation years later (and
now with one less hater) should still have 100% appreciation for Buddy Ryan the innovator. His sheer
force of will to seek and destroy even the smallest offensive weakness
meant everything to the aggressive improvement and collective
success of the Dallas Cowboys (with three Super Bowl championships as
"The Team Of The 90's") and other NFL teams. His 46 defense
forced
teams to get better (from better players to conditioning to schemes) . . . or (potentially) witness the (nationally
televised) devastation of their pro football dreams.
Buddy was as responsible as anyone within or outside the Dallas
Cowboys' organization for the
(accelerated) rise of America's Team from the ashes of beloved Tom Landry's
(RIP) final few seasons . . . to the eventual delight of Cowboys Nation.
Buddy's Eagles unlike so many teams for so many years merely
shrugged and refused to cave into fears of the magical "Cowboys
Mystique" . . . and focused only on using every
method at their disposal to keep the Cowboys and their fans from
feeling anything but beak, err, bleak. That trash began to crash once the
rebuilding Cowboys (from Jimmy Johnson and his
coaching staff to
so many eventual stars and dedicated role players) grew their NFL experience, showed
they could deliver in any weather, and really got their (winning) act together.
Ask any true professional sports player today, and they will tell
you it is not enough to have your eye on the prize as without
dedication to your craft your opponent can still cut you down to
size. You want to
know, you need to know someone is out there looking to eat your
lunch, hoping to hear your competitive bones crunch, and coming for you like a not-so-silent assassin
on every play. Buddy made sure you were going to be a game day wreck
if you were merely collecting a paycheck.
No one worth anything in NFL circles ever wanted to let Buddy Ryan
get away with resembling Nero . . . without making for damn sure his teams were
made to fight (with blood in their eyes and bamboo shoots under
their fingernails) until the game clock read 00:00.
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- Life is short . . . and with
fierce perfection and rare exception
Buddy Ryan made sure
you knew it, too, when watching any of his teams play America's
favorite gladiator sport.
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- Rex and Rob have proven to be not
quite the greatest incarnations of Coach Buddy, but the NFL needs
more like him to ensure while keeping the shield antiseptically
clean such a physical game can remain a little mean and muddy.
Love him or hate him, few were, have been, or are finer (in strategy
and tactics) than Buddy Ryan, the defensive designer.
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- Is the NFL doomed to a future
majority of
vanilla coaching personalities and the complete extinction of
strong-willed abnormalities?
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- Will Cowboys Nation ever really
appreciate how much Buddy's antagonistic rivalry with America's Team
. . . triggered faster improvement and helped them regain their
faint-but-familiar Super Bowl theme?
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- Will Philadelphia Eagles fans make
the (expected and hilarious) mistake of equating appreciation for
Buddy Ryan's dynamic defenses as a nod to Eagles fans?
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- We shall see. We always do.
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