However, Ryan transformed the Eagles from an average team to a defensive powerhouse in the NFL.
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Buddy Ryan, the mastermind behind one of the top National Football League defenses who helped guide the Chicago Bears to its only Super Bowl victory, passed away this morning, the Bears confirmed Tuesday. That Bears team is commonly regarded as the best defensive football team ever fielded.
Beloved by his players and hated by opposing offenses (and sometimes hated even by his own offenses), Ryan masterminded Chicago’s 46 defense that won Super Bowl XX.
Ryan’s long career included a stint on the staff of the University at Buffalo and that of another Super Bowl Champion, the 1968 New York Jets.
Ryan would return as a head coach in 1994 with the Arizona Cardinals, going 12-20 over the course of two seasons. “He was also one of the creative forces behind Minnesota’s “Purple People Eaters” defenses back in the mid-1970s”. In five seasons, Ryan posted a 43-38-1 record.
Ryan was battling cancer and had suffered a serious stroke, which left him confined to a wheelchair. It was while he was coaching as an assistant with the Jets in the late ’60s.
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In 1981, Bears players wrote a letter to keep Buddy Ryan.
