The death of former NFL coach Buddy Ryan on Tuesday rekindled several memories.
For starters, when Ryan was head coach at Philadelphia, the Eagles and Browns met in the 1989 preseason opener at London. Bud Carson was in his first season as head coach of the Browns. For several days leading up to that game, the teams practiced against each other.
Here were two iconic, proud, old-school, tough, hard-nosed, cantankerous defensive geniuses who weren’t going to give an inch to an opponent ever, even in practices. And that was exacerbated when they were going against each other. It was personal.
Indeed, those may have been technically practices, but they were that in name only. They weren’t really scrimmages, either. Rather, these were all-out wars, with no holds barred.
Time after time after time, those “practices” had to be halted temporarily and the players – and even the head coaches – were separated as tempers flared, profane comments were exchanged and fingers were pointed.
It may have been the liveliest practices in Browns history.
And after the sessions, the head coaches just kept chirping at each other as they were interviewed by the media. If Ryan and Carson had been placed into a room together, then they likely would have squared off.
Even though, unfortunately, that didn’t happen, it was still a lot of fun, to say the least.
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BUDDY VS. THE BROWNS II: By 1995, Ryan had moved to the Arizona Cardinals as head coach. The Cardinals finished the preseason by hosting the Browns, and leading up to the game, the teams practiced against each other. The Browns were coached by the then young, but forever cantankerous, hard-nosed and unyielding Bill Belichick, who, not surprisingly, really admired Ryan for not only his defensive knowledge but also for his determination to go against the grain.
After the practices, Ryan addressed the media. Since he was not the tallest guy in the world, he would stand on an elevated platform so as to give him some presence. Wearing a big, floppy hat to shield himself from the searing sun of late August in Arizona, Ryan’s press conferences were less about what had happened in the practices and more about his musings on this, that and the other, whatever he wanted to talk about. In essence, it was Ryan doing stand-up, and it was funny.
Belichick’s pressers? As usual, they were not funny at all. In fact, they were painful, like getting a root canal.
Now, all these years later, Belichick has turned into some – but not a whole lot, really — of what Ryan was then in his ability to talk about anything that strikes his fancy in his pressers. The difference is that unlike Ryan back in the day, nothing much strikes Belichick’s fancy when he’s in front of the media. He hates to talk to reporters as much as Ryan liked it.
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A BEAR OF A DEFENSE: Ryan’s trademark was the 46, or Bear, defense, which, when he was their defensive coordinator, the Bears used to steamroll their way – and we do mean steamroll – to the Super Bowl championship following the 1985 season with a 46-10 manhandling of the New England Patriots. The defense featured an eight-man front overloaded to the weak side. Back in the day of two-back offenses that used play-action fakes to throw the ball, the defense was built to stop the run and force the quarterback to make plays.
Though no one knew it then, the Browns provided the blueprint on how to beat the Bear, which is no longer used in the pros or college, in their 41-31 loss at Chicago in the 1986 regular-season opener. New Browns offensive coordinator Lindy Infante utilized a spread offense to force the Bears to get some of those players out of the box. Bernie Kosar passed for 280 yards, the most against the Bears all season. In typical Kosar fashion, he completed passes to seven different players, keeping the Bears guessing all day as to where the ball was going. That helped the Browns get 349 total yards, the second-highest total against Chicago all year. The Browns’ 31 points were the most scored against the Bears in 1986 – by far. Thirteen of the Bears’ 16 regular-season opponents totaled 13 points or less.
A year later, in Week 2 of the 1987 season in the last game before a lockout by the owners that caused replacement players to be used for the next three contests, Browns head coach Marty Schottenheimer caught Pittsburgh completely off-guard by coming out in a Bear defense. The Browns limited the Steelers to just 58 yards rushing, forcing quarterback Bubby Brister to beat them. Not surprising, Brister was incapable of that, throwing for only 127 yards. The result was that the Browns outscored Pittsburgh 24-7 in the second half to win going away, 34-10. Rookie Mike Junkin, the linebacker from Duke the Browns took at No. 5 overall in the 1987 NFL Draft, turned in the only brilliant performance of his short, forgettable career.
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A BREATH OF FRESH AIR: Rob Ryan was the defensive coordinator of the Browns in the 2009 and ’10 seasons under head coach Eric Mangini. Just like his twin brother Rex, now the head coach of the Buffalo Bills, and his dad, Ryan was a reporter’s dream. He was more honest, cooperative and forthcoming than any NFL coach with whom I’ve ever dealt. No, he didn’t give away any secrets that served as a competitive disadvantage for the Browns, nor did he throw anyone other than himself under the bus, but he said what he thought.
I mentioned all this to him in one of his weekly availabilities and pointed out how refreshing – and different — it was, and he smiled and said simply, “I like talking to you guys. You watch the game. You know football. You deserve to be treated respectfully.”
Wow! Double-wow!!
Ryan joined the Buffalo staff this season and holds the title of assistant head coach/defense. It is the first time that the Ryan twins have coached together in their careers. Too bad that Buddy Ryan didn’t live long enough to see them do it past the mini camps.
By the way, in his second year as senior offensive assistant with the Bills is former Browns head coach Chris Palmer, one of the nicest, kindest people you’ll ever meet in any walk of life, sports or otherwise. If a media person can work with guys like Palmer and Rob Ryan on a regular basis, the job becomes so much easier and more enjoyable.
