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Buddy Ryan was carried off the field by the team in January 1986 after the Chicago Bears won the Super Bowl. Credit Associated Press Buddy Ryan, pro football’s famously combative defensive innovator who helped propel the Jets and the Chicago Bears to Super Bowl championships, died Tuesday. He was 82.
His agent, James Solano, confirmed his death to ESPN and other media outlets.
The father of Rex Ryan, the Buffalo Bills’ head coach, and Rob Ryan, a Bills assistant, Buddy Ryan learned that he had cancer in March 2011. He had previously been treated for skin cancer.
In his seven years as a head coach, with the Philadelphia Eagles and Arizona Cardinals, Ryan never won a playoff game. But he had already solidified a legacy as an assistant coach with his shifting and blitzing defensive alignments, which confused and clobbered opposing quarterbacks. His bruising “46” defense, in particular, took the Bears to their 1986 Super Bowl victory.
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Buddy Ryan, left, posed for photos with his son Rex at a Jets camp in June 2009. Credit Associated Press For all his football intellect, Ryan embraced pure aggression.
“It got mean, cruel,” defensive end Gerry Philbin, who played under Ryan at the University of Buffalo and on the Jets, once told Sports Illustrated. “I’ve never seen anyone better at bringing the animal out of you. If you didn’t hit as hard as he wanted, he’d humiliate you in front of everyone. Guys like me loved him, though. He was just so brutally honest.”
When Ryan became the Eagles’ head coach in 1986 and subjected his players to punishing drills in training camp, he spoke of his mind-set.
“They probably think I’m a no-good so-and-so,” he told The New York Times “But that’s all right. That breeds closeness as a team. That way they can all dislike the same guy.”
His son Rex, having earned a reputation for brashness in his own right coaching the Jets, wrote in his memoir “Play Like You Mean it” (2011) that he grew up “wanting to be Buddy Ryan” but acknowledged that his father “was a little over the top from time to time.”
Buddy Ryan was carried off the field by the team in January 1986 after the Chicago Bears won the Super Bowl. Credit Associated Press Buddy Ryan, pro football’s famously combative defensive innovator who helped propel the Jets and the Chicago Bears to Super Bowl championships, died Tuesday. He was 82.
His agent, James Solano, confirmed his death to ESPN and other media outlets.
The father of Rex Ryan, the Buffalo Bills’ head coach, and Rob Ryan, a Bills assistant, Buddy Ryan learned that he had cancer in March 2011. He had previously been treated for skin cancer.
In his seven years as a head coach, with the Philadelphia Eagles and Arizona Cardinals, Ryan never won a playoff game. But he had already solidified a legacy as an assistant coach with his shifting and blitzing defensive alignments, which confused and clobbered opposing quarterbacks. His bruising “46” defense, in particular, took the Bears to their 1986 Super Bowl victory.
Photo
Buddy Ryan, left, posed for photos with his son Rex at a Jets camp in June 2009. Credit Associated Press For all his football intellect, Ryan embraced pure aggression.
“It got mean, cruel,” defensive end Gerry Philbin, who played under Ryan at the University of Buffalo and on the Jets, once told Sports Illustrated. “I’ve never seen anyone better at bringing the animal out of you. If you didn’t hit as hard as he wanted, he’d humiliate you in front of everyone. Guys like me loved him, though. He was just so brutally honest.”
When Ryan became the Eagles’ head coach in 1986 and subjected his players to punishing drills in training camp, he spoke of his mind-set.
“They probably think I’m a no-good so-and-so,” he told The New York Times “But that’s all right. That breeds closeness as a team. That way they can all dislike the same guy.”
His son Rex, having earned a reputation for brashness in his own right coaching the Jets, wrote in his memoir “Play Like You Mean it” (2011) that he grew up “wanting to be Buddy Ryan” but acknowledged that his father “was a little over the top from time to time.”
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