Buddy Ryan, the famed inventor of the 46 defense who was carried off the field by his players after the Bears' victory in Super Bowl XX, died Tuesday morning. He was 85.
The Bears confirmed Ryan's death. James Solano, Buddy Ryan's agent, told the Associated Press he died in Kentucky but did not give a cause. Ryan's health had deteriorated in recent years. An ESPN documentary in which Ryan was featured earlier this year reported he had been affected by stroke and cancer.
Ryan spent 26 seasons as an NFL coach and was a part of three staffs that appeared in Super Bowls, but his crowning achievement was as defensive coordinator of the 1985 Bears.
"The '85 Bears was the best defense there ever was, and ever will be," Ryan said in 2011. "They had a great scheme and great players."
As a defensive assistant under Weeb Ewbank with the Jets in the late 1960s, Ryan began thinking of creative ways to rush the passer when he saw how pressure affected Jets quarterback Joe Namath.
According to Hall of Fame defensive tackle Alan Page, who played for Ryan in Minnesota and with the Bears, Ryan started tinkering with the 46 in the late '70s when he was the Vikings defensive line coach. Initially, it was a nickel defense designed to stop the pass.
When Ryan came to the Bears, he officially named it the 46 in honor of safety Doug Plank, who wore the number 46.
"It really got going in 1981," said Rams coach Jeff Fisher, who played under Ryan in Chicago and coached under him with the Eagles. "It created so much havoc that eventually it became our base front. It allowed Buddy to dictate."
The concept was to put Dan Hampton, who was the most-difficult-to-block player, on the center, and crowd the offense with six men on the line and eight or nine in the box. Ryan usually blitzed between six and eight defenders from the defense, and his players loved it.
"We were so far ahead of what anyone else was doing," safety Gary Fencik said. "It was so much fun to be a part of Buddy's defense."
Ryan could be abrasive and difficult to get along with. He made enemies of Bears personnel director Bill Tobin — who once called him "the most self-centered man I've ever met in the NFL" — Don Shula, Jimmy Johnson, Darryl Rogers, Barry Switzer, Steve Beuerlein and many others.
As coach of the Eagles, he allegedly put bounties on the Cowboys quarterback Troy Aikman and kicker Luis Zendejas.
When he was defensive coordinator for the Houston Oilers, he derisively referred to offensive coordinator Kevin Gilbride's run-and-shoot scheme as the "chuck and duck" and once took a swing at Gilbride on the sideline.
His relationship with former Bears coach Mike Ditka was equally volatile. Ryan and Ditka had to be separated by players in Miami at halftime of the Bears' only loss of the 1985 season.
When Ditka was hired to coach the Bears by George Halas in 1982, it was under the condition that he retain Ryan as defensive coordinator. Ryan had been in Chicago the previous three years, and as the 1981 season wound down, Page and Fencik wrote a letter to Halas asking that Ryan not be fired.