Professional Football Researchers Association Forum

If Bill Walsh is to be believed, Paul Brown worked extremely hard to snuff out Bill's coaching career before it could even got started.

In league circles Walsh was known as a bright young offensive mind and would have inquiries and offers coming his way from time to time...but Brown made sure they never made it back to Walsh. He was left totally in the dark. Even once Walsh left the Bengals after the 1975 season after being passed up for the position by Tiger Johnson, it was alleged that Brown engaged in a sort of whisper campaign to keep him out of the league.

What was Browns motivation here? Surely he knew how capable Walsh was. Was he threatened by him? Did he feel letting go of Walsh and allowing him to grow and flourish on his own somewhere else would be a threat to him down the line in a competitive sense (as it did turn out to be)

Did he expect Walsh to just sit and take it post 1975? After 8 years as a great assistant and in his mid 40's. Surely he'd know he'd be a bit perturbed

I think it was simply a case of Brown trying to protect his decision and make sure he wasn't second guessed at the expense of Walsh.

What is to say the same thing would not have happened to Walsh had he stayed with the Bengals? It's not like anything would have been much different with the Brown's in charge. Maybe he may have averted the 8 game loosing streak to start the season in 1978 but then again maybe not.

I really don't know what "revelations" you're referring to here, but Brown's decision to hire Johnson was very widely discussed at the time and the consensus was that only possible for Brown to hire his line coach rather than his offensive coordinator is that Brown's ego was so big that he didn't want his replacement to have much success.

rhickok1109 wrote:Brown's ego was so big that he didn't want his replacement to have much success.

Supposedly, the same reason that Lombardi picked Phil Bengston to replace him in GB. Brown's ego was still huge, even if they hadn't been able to get any farther than their 1970 miracle run to the playoffs. He snubbed Blanton Collier for the last 20 years of the latter's life because he took the Browns job after Modell fired Brown.

BD Sullivan wrote:

rhickok1109 wrote:Brown's ego was so big that he didn't want his replacement to have much success.

Supposedly, the same reason that Lombardi picked Phil Bengston to replace him in GB. Brown's ego was still huge, even if they hadn't been able to get any farther than their 1970 miracle run to the playoffs. He snubbed Blanton Collier for the last 20 years of the latter's life because he took the Browns job after Modell fired Brown.

This is very common in all fields, all across history. You can look back to the Roman Emperor Tiberius naming Caligula as his successor. You want to be appreciated? Hire somebody worse to follow you.