Why Bill Walsh is the Best NFL Coach Ever

Bill Walsh is the best coach in NFL history. Sure plenty of people will step up to argue their guy is the best coach ever but I will make some good points I think. First let me tell you I hated Walsh and the 49ers for years, because I was a Dallas Cowboys fan when Walsh was coaching. So it is with no bias that I say Bill Walsh was the best coach in NFL history.

Yes I know Bill Walsh does not have the greatest coaching record, but according to profootballreference.com he did 152 and 92 which isn't bad. Bill Walsh won 3 Super Bowls and that ranks him pretty high in my book. Walsh would have had a much better coaching record if he had been hired when he was younger. Bill Walsh was 48 years old when he became the coach of the San Francisco 49ers in 1979.

Bill Walsh is the best coach in NFL history because he changed the National Football League forever. You can read here about his West Coast Offense and how it got started. The West Coast Offense is still widely used today and every NFL offense uses some facets of it. A combination of innovation and the ability to work on an opponent's weakness made Walsh a superb play caller.

Bill Walsh took bad teams and made them competitive then took good teams and made them great. I don't think there has ever been a better talent evaluator than Bill Walsh. Neither Joe Montana nor Steve Young were expected to be great until Walsh made them so.

Joe Montana, who as you can see here is the best NFL quarterback of all time, was picked in the 3^rd round of his draft. Some other draft steals by Bill Walsh and his scouting departments are as follows. Charles Haley 4^th round, Michael Carter in the 5^th round, Roger Craig, 2^nd round, Jessie Sapolu in the 11^th, and Dwight Clark in the tenth round.

Another reason Bill Walsh is the greatest coach in NFL history is the coaching tree under him. Mike Holmgren, George Seifort, Dennis Green Sam Whyche and others were assistant coaches directly under Bill Walsh. Mike Shanahan, Jon Gruden, Andy Reid Brian Billick, Mike Tomlin, Lovie Smith and many others learned from coaches trained by Bill Walsh.

I stand ready to get some grief from Don Shula, Chuck Knoll, Tom Landry, Vince Lombardi or even Bill Belichick fans. I must point at that at the time of this writing Bill Belichick has not won a Super Bowl since he was stopped from cheating. I will stand by my opinion that Bill Walsh is the best NFL coach ever.

Sources

My own knowledge of football history

Bill Walsh's coaching record according to Profootballreference.com