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Today in Patriots History
1982: Pats hire Ron Meyer
1982: Pats hire Ron Meyer
January 12, 1982:
Ron Meyer is hired to become Head Coach
After some very promising improvement in the late seventies with Chuck Fairbanks as the head coach, Ron Erhardt took over in 1979. The Pats missed the playoffs, going 9-7, 10-6, and then plummeting to 2-14 in 1981. That club may have actually been the best two-win team in NFL history, with eight one-score losses, a point differential of only minus-48 points, and an offense that ranked 9th in yards and 15th in points. But they also lost their last nine games in a row and attendance was down. The final humility was losing in the final week of the season in the Stupor Bowl to 1-14 Baltimore. The Colts had lost 14 straight after a week one win against - yep, the Patriots. Two days later Erhardt was fired, but at least the loss gave the Pats the number one pick in the draft. (Take note, Jerod Mayo.) Perhaps desiring to duplicate the success of Fairbanks, Billy Sullivan decided to go to the college ranks for his new head coach rather than someone with NFL coaching experience.
A native of Westerville, Ohio, where he was born on Feb. 17, 1941, Meyer was class president of his high school and lettered in football, basketball and baseball. Meyer attended Purdue and walked on to the football team and eventually earned a scholarship. As a defensive back, he led the team in minutes played as a junior and senior. A standout both on the field and in the classroom, Meyer was selected to the All-Big 10 Academic Team and won the Nobel Kaiser Award for athletic and academic achievement in 1963.
Meyer spent six seasons (1965-70) as an assistant coach with his alma mater before leaving college for the NFL ranks as a personnel scout with the Dallas Cowboys. After two seasons with the Cowboys, he was named head coach at the University of Nevada – Las Vegas in 1973. Meyer took over a UNLV squad that had won once in 11 games in 1972 and led the Rebels to an 8-3 record the following year in his first season as a head coach. In 1974, UNLV went undefeated, 11-0, during the regular season and finished runner up in the NCAA Division II National Championship.
After turning around UNLV, Meyer was hired to become head coach at Southern Methodist. For twenty-plus years SMU had been a doormat in the Southwest Conference, one of the smallest 1-A schools in the country, attempting to compete with traditional powerhouses like Texas, in a conference with other schools that had double or triple the enrollment. But the Mustangs miraculously - or so it seemed at the time - turned things around. In Meyer's fifth season, 1980, SMU went 8-4, tied for second in the SWC and invited to a bowl game for the first time in 12 years. The next year SMU won the Southwest Conference for only the second time since 1948, going 10-1 with a number five final national ranking. There would be no bowl game though, as SMU was on probation for recruiting violations. Turns out that SMU was paying players under the table, and later investigations - for actions while Meyer was there - resulted in the Death Penalty, with SMU barred from playing football for year.
Meyer's first year in New England was the strike-shortened 1982 season. The highlight was the Snow Plow Game that the Patriots won 3-0, causing Don Shula to nearly have a stroke on the field (and leading to his unhealthy hatred of all things Patriots for the rest of his life). The following week the Pats shutout the Seahawks 16-0 in Seattle, for the only back-to-back shutouts in franchise history. The Pats made the expanded playoffs with a 5-4 record before losing to the Dolphins in Miami in the wild card round 28-13. The turnaround resulted in Meyer being named AFC Coach of the Year.
The following year the Pats went 8-8, four games behind Miami in second place in the AFC East, and missing a wild card spot by one game. In 1984 the Patriots were sitting at 5-3, one game behind the Jets, three behind undefeated Miami, and one game in back of Seattle for the last wild card spot. On Wednesday of that week Meyer canned defensive coordinator Rod Rust, blindsiding ownership by not consulting with any of the team's management prior to the decision.
24 hours later, Meyer was fired, replaced by Raymond Berry. After immediately rehiring Rust the new coach went 4-4 the rest of the way, then guided the Patriots to an 11-5 record the following year, winning the franchise's first AFC championship in the Squish the Fish Game.
Ron Meyer gave the revolving door its first push,... - UPI Archives
Ron Meyer gave the revolving door its first push, but it was the New England Patriots head coach who ended up on the outside looking in....
www.upi.com
'It would have been extremely easy to stay status quo,' said Meyer about his sacking of the popular Rust who is highly regarded by the Sullivan family, owners of the Patriots.
But that move made Meyer's removal imperative, according to **** Steinberg, director of player personnel.
'This was a more positive way to go than the status quo. They (the team) have played over the distractions up to now, but this last thing we felt was too great a thing to overcome,' said Steinberg.
Meyer, who on Wednesday said he was 'never opposed to decisive action,' was fired from his first NFL job after guiding the Patriots to an 18-16 record over 2 seasons.
Berry, a receivers coach for New England in 1978-81, had been out of football since then, working as a sales manager for a Tennessee company. He was given a multi-year pact by the team. Neither length nor salary were disclosed.
Berry, 51, who had also worked as an assistant in Dallas, Detroit and Cleveland, rehired Rust as his first move in his first job as an NFL head coach -- the Patriots' ninth.
'Everybody who knows Rod Rust is glad to have him back,' said Berry, who played in the NFL for 13 years with the Baltimore Colts, where he was the favorite target of legendary quarterback Johnny Unitas.
Patriots general manager Patrick Sullivan told a noon press conference Thursday, 'Yesterday was an extremely difficult day, but I feel we have come out stronger.'
Sullivan was reportedly deeply upset with Meyer's action three days after the team gave up a club record 552 yards to the Miami Dolphins.
Sullivan flew back from New Orleans mid-day Wednesday after Rust was fired by Meyer. Sullivan called Berry at his Medfield, Mass., home before meeting with Meyer at 5 p.m. at the stadium. Berry was offered the job Wednesday night and Meyer was informed Thursday morning by Sullivan of the ouster.
Asked why he did not fire Meyer Wednesday night since Berry had already accepted the job offer, Sullivan said, 'I was not in the mood, it had been a difficult day.'
At the time the firing of a head coach was a rarity. Team owners had to have patience with head coaches; there were no quick turnarounds in the era before the salary cap and free agency. Meyer never had a losing season as head coach of the Patriots, and at the time his .545 career winning percentage was the best in franchise history (fifth now, behind Mike Vrabel's .824, Bill Belichick's .687, Pete Carroll's .563 and Raymond Berry's .552). Meyer later became head coach for the Colts; in his first full season, 1987, turned Indy around from a 3-13, fifth place finish to 9-6, first place in the AFC East. That earned Meyer his second AFC Coach of the Year honor.
One very important note regarding the hire of Ron Meyer: he brought with him an assistant from SMU - an offensive line coach by the name of Dante Scarnecchia. Scar followed Meyer to Indianapolis for the 1989-90 seasons but thankfully returned to New England in 1991.
