Bill Walsh passes away

Three time Super Bowl winning coach Bill Walsh passed away today at the age of 75. Some people regard Vince Lombardi, George Halas, Paul Brown, or Chuck Noll the greatest coach of all time, but none had the impact on the modern passing game that Bill Walsh had, with the popularization of the West Coast Offense. Centered around short, quick, accurate passes, the passing game became diagonal as opposed to vertical. Explosive plays did not suffer because the goal was to get the ball to the receiver where he had some momentum to run after the catch. Joe Montana and Steve Young, the two QBs Walsh had for most of his career, have the two highest passer ratings for retired quarterbacks. Arguably the biggest innovation to the passing game since Knute Rockne employed the forward pass, the West Coast Offense is visible on basically every team over the last decade except last year's Raiders.