Marty Schottenheimer, successful and memorable Browns team coach of the 1980s, has died at the age of 77

CHARLOTTE, NC. – After a seven-year battle with Alzheimer’s disease, former Cleveland Browns coach Marty Schottenheimer died at age 77, according to ESPN.

Schottenheimer was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s in 2014. On January 30, he moved to a hospice center near his home in Charlotte.

In Schottenheimer his 54-year-old wife, Pat, his children Kristen and Brian, and grandchildren Brandon, Sutton, Savannah and Catherine survive.

The Cleveland Browns issued the following statement about Schottenheimer’s transfer.

A life of football

Born in Canonsburg, Pennsylvania, in 1943, Schottenheimer lived and breathed football, playing defense in high school and college, at the University of Pittsburgh. He was selected in the fourth round of the 1965 NFL Draft by the Baltimore Colts and in the seventh round of the AFL Draft by the Buffalo Bills, opting to play Buffalo.

After spending four years at the Bills and winning an AFL championship, Schottenheimer played two seasons with the Boston Patriots before jumping from the Pittsburgh Steelers to the Baltimore Colts and then retiring in 1971.

While enjoying several years as a professional football player, Schottenheimer made a name for himself several years later as a coach.

An unforgettable legacy of coach

Schottenhemier began his coaching career before his time as head coach of the Browns, serving as the New York Giants’ defense coach in 1975 and 1976, as the Giants’ defensive coordinator in 1977 and as the New Yorkers’ head coach Detroit Lions in 1978 and 1979. He was hired as the Browns’ defensive coordinator in 1980.

His break as head coach came with the Browns in 1984, when he replaced Sam Rutigliano, and he achieved his first full season as head coach in 1985. That year, Schottenheimer and quarterback Bernie Kosar, who had just finished being selected in the 1985 draft supplement, began a successful era in Cleveland that surpassed even the Kardiac Kids era that fans had gathered.

Although Schottenheimer and his Browns never made it to the Super Bowl, he helped make the team a perennial rival for the playoffs during his tenure. At that time, Schottenheimer had a 44-27 record, a percentage of 0.620 winners, and made four appearances in the playoffs. The Browns, with Schottenehimer, won three AFC Central Division titles. After the 1988 season, Art Modell became involved with the successful coach (not for the first time), causing a fracture that could not be reconciled, and Schottenheimer moved away from the Browns.

Schottenhemier continued the following season to become head coach of the Kansas City Chiefs, where he would spend the next 10 years racking up a regular season record of 101-58-1 and making seven playoff appearances with three divisional titles. Despite the success of the regular season, Schottenheimer and the Chiefs never made it to the Super Bowl, and resigned as head coach after the 1998 season.

After spending time as an ESPN analyst, Schottenheimer once again provoked his head coaching career, taking the place with Washington for a season before being fired by owner Daniel Snyder in an unpopular play.

Schottenheimer ended his NFL coaching days with the Chargers, spending five years with the team before being fired in 2007 after discord erupted in the organization.

In his years as NFL head coach, Schottenheimer developed the coaching strategy known as “ball Marty” or run, run, pass, point. It worked well for him during his coaching years during the regular season, but it never paid off in the playoffs. Schottenheimer’s 205 wins are the highest of all coaches who fail to win or win an NFL championship.

But while not winning it all, Schottenheimer’s legacy is truly unforgettable and his technical tree continues to have an impact on the league to this day, with names like Bruce Arians, Mike McCarthy, Bill Cowher, Tony Dungy, Hue Jackson, Mike Tomlin, Jim Caldwell, Doug Marrone, Todd Bowles and Leslie Frazier go back to him.

Kosar recalls

Former Browns quarterback Bernie Kosar had long known the news, but learning of Schottenheimer’s death was still a blow.

“Remembering Marty as someone you absolutely love and cherish, and I can’t thank him enough for the structure, discipline, and belief he had in me,” Kosar said.

Schottenheimer’s first full year as head coach in 1985 was Kosar’s first as a starting quarterback. Together they would turn around a team that started 1-7 the year before and turn it into a franchise that would go to two consecutive conference championships. Kosar said Schottenheimer, a former player, brought toughness, squeaky and discipline to the work, as well as attention to detail that made players look forward to Sunday.

“Actually, the internships were harder than the games, the two-a-day internships, the three-a-day internships, the amount of contacts you had to do internships made Sunday not so hard to go against other teams.” , he said. “It probably shortened a lot of player careers, but in the short term of playing our teams were tough, disciplined and every Sunday we knew we were ready to play.”

Then he did it again with his heads down.

“For him to unite the structure, organization of two organizations that did not win football games or win the playoffs before reaching it, would bring together these two teams and these two organizations in a decade to reach several games of the Championship of the AFC Conference is not at all an easy thing to do, ”Kosar said.

Schottenheimer was in the early stages of Alzheimer’s in 2016, when he returned to Cleveland to be honored with his 1986 team. It is a disease that, in his later days, robbed him, according to Kosar, really appreciate this year’s playoff clash between two of their most successful franchises.

“It’s a shame that a man who has had such a massive influence on so many of us is not able to understand, really know the magnitude of a Browns-Chiefs game where he had such a major influence,” Kosar said.

In life, fate kept Schottenheimer from the biggest stage of the game, but Kosar hopes death can achieve the biggest honor of the game. A football trip that began in Cleveland ending right on Canton Road.

“When you talk about the history and tradition of the Cleveland Browns and go back to the greats Paul Brown and Otto Graham, and that Marty Schottenheimer is mentioned with the same breath in this type of organization, it is absolutely a confirmation of our previous statement of you win the right to have a house in Guangzhou, the Hall of Fame, ”Kosar said.