PatsFans.com Menu
PatsFans.com - The Hub For New England Patriots Fans

RIP Ray Perkins


jmt57

Moderator
Staff member
Joined
Aug 13, 2005
Messages
19,250
Reaction score
12,783
Perkins was 79.

Pats WR coach from 1974-1977, and OC from 1993-1996.

In between he was HC for the Giants, Alabama and Tampa Bay. While in New York he hired Bill Belichick, Bill Parcells and Romeo Crennel.

Perkins' greatest accomplishment was not as a head coach, but as an assistant for Chuck Fairbanks. The Erhardt-Perkins offensive system has stood the test of time, still in use nearly half a century after its inception.

 
Perkins was a master among men. And clearly the system is one that will continue for a LONG LONG time.
Here is another article about the E-P system from Brian Daboll's perspective.

 
Fairbanks was building something here; one of the reasons being that he had hired bright, experienced coaches such as Ray Perkins to help him transform the franchise from the misery of the prior half-decade...Left to their own devices they likely establish a contender for the next decade, into the 1980s..If one thinks about it, the Patriots are to Erhardt-Perkins what the SF 49ers are to the West Coast offense and the SD Chargers are to the Gilman-Coryell offense...
 
Fairbanks was building something here; one of the reasons being that he had hired bright, experienced coaches such as Ray Perkins to help him transform the franchise from the misery of the prior half-decade...Left to their own devices they likely establish a contender for the next decade, into the 1980s..If one thinks about it, the Patriots are to Erhardt-Perkins what the SF 49ers are to the West Coast offense and the SD Chargers are to the Gilman-Coryell offense...
It was a shame the way it ended, they might have won a super bowl way back then.
 
Fairbanks was building something here; one of the reasons being that he had hired bright, experienced coaches such as Ray Perkins to help him transform the franchise from the misery of the prior half-decade...Left to their own devices they likely establish a contender for the next decade, into the 1980s..If one thinks about it, the Patriots are to Erhardt-Perkins what the SF 49ers are to the West Coast offense and the SD Chargers are to the Gilman-Coryell offense...
Your comment gets back to the importance of team ownership. If Kraft, despite some faults, had owned the Pats instead of Billy Sullivan, we might have had a dynasty starting in the '70s and running through the '80s.
 
Seems like he's like Tex Winters the guy behind the triangle offense in basketball. A key architect of some iconic systems
 
Your comment gets back to the importance of team ownership. If Kraft, despite some faults, had owned the Pats instead of Billy Sullivan, we might have had a dynasty starting in the '70s and running through the '80s.
No doubt, and I've ragged on Kraft pretty strongly...but had he owned the team during the time of Fairbanks, then we join the list of perennial AFC PO teams during the 1970s that included Miami, Sh!tsdirt & Oakland, and likely out-last the Squealers for relevency during the 1980s...
 
I never understood why Fairbanks never had success after he left the Patriots. He was only 45.

RIP Ray Perkins.
 
Even GOATS like Brady and BB are just standing on the shoulders of giants.

RIP Ray Perkins.
 
No doubt, and I've ragged on Kraft pretty strongly...but had he owned the team during the time of Fairbanks, then we join the list of perennial AFC PO teams during the 1970s that included Miami, Sh!tsdirt & Oakland, and likely out-last the Squealers for relevency during the 1980s...
Those teams were also just fun to watch. Pound, pound, pound the ball behind the Hannah-led great offensive line and then, bang, hit Stanley Morgan for a 30 yard TD pass.
 
Those teams were also just fun to watch. Pound, pound, pound the ball behind the Hannah-led great offensive line and then, bang, hit Stanley Morgan for a 30 yard TD pass.
Yep; and it's a shame (for different reasons, obviously) that fellow WRs Darryl Stingley & BU's own Reggie Rucker didn't stay longer too...
 
Ray Perkins was the last in a line of HCs who did something which is unthinkable today, but was actually a thing a couple guys did way back in the day: He voluntarily left an NFL HC position for a college one. I know his Giants weren't that good, but supposedly he was not on the chopping block. Alabama was his dream job, but IMHO you don't want to be he guy who follows the legend; you want to be the guy who follows the guy who followed the legend.
 
Remember when Kansas City ran "All-Go Special Halfback Seam" against the Patriots in wk 1 of 2017 & then you saw everyone doing it? I mean, it was so new and innovative, right? Who would ever have a back-in-backfield attack the seam, while using play-action to move the weak-side player, behind the LOS, to get 4 eligible receivers to the strong side?




Same trickery, different formation/personnel.....

1974 Patriots Offensive Playbook pg 142:

1607664864993.png

 
Ray Perkins was the last in a line of HCs who did something which is unthinkable today, but was actually a thing a couple guys did way back in the day: He voluntarily left an NFL HC position for a college one. I know his Giants weren't that good, but supposedly he was not on the chopping block. Alabama was his dream job, but IMHO you don't want to be he guy who follows the legend; you want to be the guy who follows the guy who followed the
Didn’t Nick Saban do it? Didn’t someone leave the NFL to coach Arkansas?
 
Didn’t Nick Saban do it? Didn’t someone leave the NFL to coach Arkansas?
Nick Saban might be a good example, I hadn’t thought of him. He wasn’t exactly lighting the world in fire in Miami, but I don’t think he was in the verge of being fired.

However, I would not consider Bobby Petrino an example. Even though he was in his first year in Atlanta, he was an absolute disaster and Arkansas isn’t exactly a premiere college job. IMHO that was more a guy who was one of the biggest POS’s in sports bailing on an untenable situation.
 


MORSE: Patriots Draft Needs and Draft Related Info
Friday Patriots Notebook 4/19: News and Notes
TRANSCRIPT: Eliot Wolf’s Pre-Draft Press Conference 4/18/24
Thursday Patriots Notebook 4/18: News and Notes
Wednesday Patriots Notebook 4/17: News and Notes
Tuesday Patriots Notebook 4/16: News and Notes
Monday Patriots Notebook 4/15: News and Notes
Patriots News 4-14, Mock Draft 3.0, Gilmore, Law Rally For Bill 
Potential Patriot: Boston Globe’s Price Talks to Georgia WR McConkey
Friday Patriots Notebook 4/12: News and Notes
Back
Top