Marty Schottenheimer, who won 200 regular-season games with four NFL teams thanks to his “Martyball” brand of smash-mouth football but regularly fell short in the playoffs, has died. He was 77.
Schottenheimer died Monday night in Charlotte, North Carolina, his family said through Bob Moore, former Kansas City Chiefs publicist. He was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s in 2014. He was moved to a hospice on Jan. 30.
Schottenheimer was the eighth-winningest coach in NFL history. He went 200-126-1 in 21 seasons with the Cleveland Browns, Kansas City Chiefs, Washington and San Diego Chargers.
His success was rooted in “Martyball,” a conservative approach that featured a strong running game and tough defense. He hated the then-Oakland Raiders and loved the mantra, “One play at a time,” which he’d holler at his players in the pre-kickoff huddle.
Winning in the regular season was never a problem. Schottenheimer’s teams won 10 or more games 11 times, including a glistening 14-2 record with the Chargers in 2006 that earned them the AFC’s No. 1 seed in the playoffs.
It’s what happened in January that haunted Schottenheimer, who was just 5-13 in the postseason.
His playoff demons followed him to the end of his career.
In his final game, on Jan. 14, 2007, Schottenheimer’s Chargers, featuring NFL MVP LaDainian Tomlinson and a supporting cast of Pro Bowlers, imploded with mind-numbing mistakes and lost a home divisional playoff game to Tom Brady and the New England Patriots, 24-21.
A month later, owner Dean Spanos stunned the NFL when he fired Schottenheimer due to a personality clash between the coach and strong-willed general manager A.J. Smith. Schottenheimer and Smith hadn’t spoken for about two years.
A breaking point for Spanos — head of the family owned team — came when Schottenheimer wanted to hire his brother, Kurt, as defensive coordinator after Wade Phillips was hired away as Dallas’ head coach. Kurt Schottenheimer had been on his brother’s previous staffs, and Marty Schottenheimer’s son, Brian, had been Chargers quarterbacks coach from 2002-05.
Schottenheimer then moved to North Carolina to spend time with his family and golf.
Schottenheimer was 44-27 with the Cleveland Browns from 1984-88, 101-58-1 with Kansas City from 1989-98; 8-8 with Washington in 2001 and 47-33 with San Diego from 2002-06.
Schottenheimer never made it to the Super Bowl, either as a player or coach. He was a backup linebacker for the Buffalo Bills when they lost the 1966 AFL Championship Game to Kansas City, which then played the Green Bay Packers in the first Super Bowl.
As a coach, his playoff losses were epic and mystifying.
His Browns twice came tantalizingly close to earning Super Bowl berths, only to have them ripped away by “The Drive” and “The Fumble” in consecutive AFC Championship Games against personal nemesis John Elway and the Broncos.
