RIP Jerry Burns

Let's Remember The NFL's Greatest Forgotten Coaching Rant

 

Had no idea burns had been on the Packers staff for the first two Super Bowls.

 

The underachievement thing is right - the '88 and '89 Vikings were awfully talented (although not at QB), and all they could muster were 11-5 and 10-6 records and two asskickings in the playoffs by San Francisco. Pretty much the same team collapsed to 6-10 in 1990 after Keith Millard's knee exploded.

Viking loyalists are again starting their periodic whining that Burns and not Bill Walsh should have gotten credit for the West Coast Offense and using short passes to running backs. If you believe Paul Zimmerman, which you usually could on stuff like this, Walsh actually did it first not in SF but in Cincinnati in the early 70s, when Greg Cook got hurt and they had to adjust to Virgil Carter's weaker arm.

 

Back in the day, had to turn your head sideways:

Vikings bench Jackson, turn to Frerotte at QB

 

Mateen is right. 1988 Vikings had a hell-raising defense and a plus-23 turnover differential, competed with quality opponents and then got their doors blown off in the playoffs.

Burns was seen as a safe in-house successor to Bud Grant after the Vikings foolishly handed the job to ex-Marine Les Steckel in 1984.
The club went 3-13 with Grant's old guys, Steckel was fired and Grant came in for a year in 1985 to right the ship.
They went 8-8, Grant retired again and Burns came on in 1986 with a full cupboard.
Minnesota was very close to going to the Super Bowl in 1987.
If you recall there was a turnover on downs inside the Washington red zone late in the game.

 

The week before it, anyone would have said Anthony Carter had one of the best playoff games ever. He ran through the 49ers at silent movie speed in that game.

 

To hear Minnesotans talk Nelson cost them a Super Bowl berth; in reality had he caught it that just gets them to OT.

The New Orleans and San Francisco playoff games were bizarre. They'd lost to Washington in the season finale and needed another team to lose to even make the playoffs; the Vikings then proceeded to play perfect games for two straight weeks and cause Joe Montana to get benched.

 

Coached DBs, IIRC. Could be wrong, but I think he replaced Evashevski as Iowa's head coach, got fired and Lombardi hired him.

 

Jerry Burns might be a good one for the NFL Bacon Oracle. He coached until 1991. His last game was Lindy Infante's last in Green Bay before the Holmgren era was ushered in.

 

Jerome Monahan 'Jerry' Burns

He will be truly missed and will be fondly remembered for enjoying a round of golf in his beloved Jamaica.

The Strib obit.

RIP

Obituary for Jerome Monahan 'Jerry' Burns

 

Pat Reusse from 2020. Colum about Sid but he mentioned Burnsie.

Burns Hired Holtz at Iowa, dunno if that was Holtz's first college coaching job. Grad assistant.

I got to know Jerry Burns much better as the Vikings head coach, and in the decades since, and Burnsie is in the top handful of favorites that I’ve encountered in sports.

Hartman had known Burns for a quarter-century by 1981, and climbing over those chairs to defend a man who already was a great friend was praiseworthy rather than hilarious.

The roots of that Burns friendship added more perspective on Sid’s career that ended with a column published on the morning of his death:

Here was a working sportswriter who went back to the late ’40s and ’50s, when Big Ten football was the center of our universe, and to get every piece of info, be it a boulder or a pebble, Sid found contacts on all teams.

When Evashevski came to the Twin Cities, first as the Iowa coach from 1951 to 1959, and then as athletic director, Sid would pick up “Evy” at the airport. He met Burns and Lou Holtz as Iowa assistants. He met George Steinbrenner as a rich kid serving as an assistant coach at Purdue.

Sid Hartman was networking before anybody coined the term

I add this because of the coaching tree mentioned earlier.