Welcome to Bill Walsh's NFL

[GunnerBill]

I was actually prompted to think about this in the odd "Reid disrespects McDermott" thread yesterday. I started thinking about the Reid tree, which is really the Holmgren tree, which is really the Bill Walsh tree.... and then I went down the rabbit hole and.... OH WOW! We are living in a Bill Walsh world. 

 

Of the 31 NFL Head Coaches currently employed only one - Mike Vrabel of the Patriots - has no link to the Bill Walsh tree. There was a time when the Walsh tree and the Parcells tree were seen as somewhat equal and while it is true that there are guys on the Walsh tree who also feature on the Parcells tree: Payton, Daboll, Campbell (and his guys) you can't get to anything like 30/31 for Parcells. This league is now fully under the influence of that lineage. Talk about leaving a legacy!

 

Anyway, the image below is my visual representation of it (apologies for image quality it wouldn't upload in higher res, will try and fix)

 

Link to clearer version of image

 

 

Edited Saturday at 04:14 PM by GunnerBill

[Sojourner]

Patriots & Saints the only teams not represented in that tree. 
 

93.75% of all teams. Really is the old boys network

Edited Saturday at 04:40 PM by Sojourner

[MJS]

Cool. There is no doubt that virtually every team runs at least some west coast offense principles in their offenses.

 

Although, I'm not sure it makes sense for the defensive coaches. It would be interesting to see if there is a similar link on the defensive side where everything stems from.

[Simon]

This is really funny from my perspective because the other day I almost went on a rant, part of which would have been about playing against 15 Bill Walsh offenses every galdanged year, and I had no idea this was the actual case. (The rant was about whether or not it was still wise to put an outsize amount of resources into a DL that never has time to get to the QB anyways).

 

[stuvian]

 

some coaching trees have genetic mutations

[Sojourner]

1 minute ago, stuvian said:

 

some coaching trees have genetic mutations

Well… his dad is dating his dream girl and got him an NFL gig. He’s at least got those 2 things for him. 

Edited Saturday at 04:27 PM by Sojourner

[GunnerBill]

3 minutes ago, MJS said:

Cool. There is no doubt that virtually every team runs at least some west coast offense principles in their offenses.

 

Although, I'm not sure it makes sense for the defensive coaches. It would be interesting to see if there is a similar link on the defensive side where everything stems from.

 

Of the five "branches" of the tree, three are sourced from offense and Seifert and Rhodes are sourced from defense. And what they both ran were 4-3 schemes that played zone coverage on early downs and then lots of heavy nickel and dime on 3rd down. I think that is pretty influential on the defenses you see in the league today. It was the basis of the 4-3 under Pete Carroll won a Superbowl with in Seattle and heavily influences a lot of the schemes you see. There is more variance on D than on O though, because there is still a strong 3-4 contingent of defensive coordinators around. 

[D. L. Hot-Flamethrower]

I want to see a Belichik tree if possible. I know it goes back to Parcells, but it seems like an inordinate number of BB coaches have done poorly.

[GunnerBill]

9 minutes ago, Sojourner said:

Patriots, Saints and Seahawks the only teams not represented in that tree. 
 

90.6% of all teams. Really is the old boys network

 

Seattle is on there. MacDonald from the Harbaugh branch of the Reid/Holmgren branch. 

[MJS]

3 minutes ago, GunnerBill said:

 

Of the five "branches" of the tree, three are sourced from offense and Seifert and Rhodes are sourced from defense. And what they both ran were 4-3 schemes that played zone coverage on early downs and then lots of heavy nickel and dime on 3rd down. I think that is pretty influential on the defenses you see in the league today. It was the basis of the 4-3 under Pete Carroll won a Superbowl with in Seattle and heavily influences a lot of the schemes you see. There is more variance on D than on O though, because there is still a strong 3-4 contingent of defensive coordinators around. 

How doss Jim Johnson play into it? Because McDermott and Spagnuolo both worked under him, right? I'm not as aware of the coaching trees on the defensive side.

[Low Positive]

Why stop at Walsh? Walsh famously worked for Paul Brown in Cincinnati for many years and developed the "West Coast Offense" there. It really should be the Ohio River Offense, but I digress. Paul Brown's coaching tree has Walsh, Don Shula, and Chuck Knoll as its main branches. Any current NFL coach can be traced back to that.

 

Edited Saturday at 04:38 PM by Low Positive

[Sojourner]

2 minutes ago, GunnerBill said:

 

Seattle is on there. MacDonald from the Harbaugh branch of the Reid/Holmgren branch. 

Yeah, I saw which is why I deleted that. So it really is just the Saints and Pats. Wild. 

[Miyagi-Do Karate]

16 minutes ago, stuvian said:

 

some coaching trees have genetic mutations

I can see it now: Bill Walsh on Jerry Springer demanding a paternity test! 
 

[Sojourner]

9 minutes ago, Low Positive said:

Why stop at Walsh? Walsh famously worked for Paul Brown in Cincinnati for many years and developed the "West Coast Offense" there. It really should be the Ohio River Offense, but I digress. Paul Brown's coaching tree has Walsh, Don Shula, and Chuck Knoll as its main branches. Any current NFL coach can be traced back to that.

 

Tony Dungy got some experience guidance. Chuck Noll and Bill Walsh? Crazy

[GunnerBill]

17 minutes ago, MJS said:

How doss Jim Johnson play into it? Because McDermott and Spagnuolo both worked under him, right? I'm not as aware of the coaching trees on the defensive side.

 

Similarities in that he liked to use dime in particular but he was blitz heavier. 

[Low Positive]

The West Coast Offence was developed to hide the limitations of Virgil Carter, who was the QB that came into Cincinnati after Greg Cook suffered a shoulder injury. Carter was essentially the Brock Purdy of the early '70s. So Brown and Walsh cooked up a timing-based offense to compensate for his lack of arm strength and field-reading ability. In the interests of full disclosure, I didn't know much of this until I watched a video a few minutes ago. 

 

Listen, Paul Brown was an egomaniacal dictator, but his influence on the modern passing game is immense. 

 

 

[FireChans]

32 minutes ago, Simon said:

The rant was about whether or not it was still wise to put an outsize amount of resources into a DL that never has time to get to the QB anyways

It’s a fair point. There’s some argument to investing in the back 7 and hoping they hold up enough for the front 4 to finish plays. 
 

With how flag happy the NFL is, especially on the offense, not sure it’s the best strategy. But you could paint the LOB Seahawks with that brush. 3 All Pro DB’s, 1 All Pro LB, and a gaggle of okay to above average guys on the DL.

 

On topic, Walsh has my vote as the second best HC ever tbh. Changed the game and has the hardware to prove it.

Edited Saturday at 04:57 PM by FireChans

[GunnerBill]

16 minutes ago, Low Positive said:

The West Coast Offence was developed to hide the limitations of Virgil Carter, who was the QB that came into Cincinnati after Greg Cook suffered a shoulder injury. Carter was essentially the Brock Purdy of the early '70s. So Brown and Walsh cooked up a timing-based offense to compensate for his lack of arm strength and field-reading ability. In the interests of full disclosure, I didn't know much of this until I watched a video a few minutes ago. 

 

Listen, Paul Brown was an egomaniacal dictator, but his influence on the modern passing game is immense. 

 

 

 

I knew the Carter story. Wasn't aware of the extent of Brown's tree. Weren't Lombardi and Landry on the same Giants staff at one poin too?

[Low Positive]

2 minutes ago, GunnerBill said:

 

I knew the Carter story. Wasn't aware of the extent of Brown's tree. Weren't Lombardi and Landry on the same Giants staff at one poin too?

I actually take some of that back after doing a bit more digging. Shula and Knoll never actually coached under Brown. They played for him in Cleveland.  But Paul Brown was instrumental in the development of the WCO, so that single branch in a coaching tree is pretty huge. 

[Punch]

FWIW, Bill Walsh's first collegiate coaching job was as WR coach under Marv Levy at Cal.