Legendary head coach Chuck Knox passes away

On Sunday, the National Football League lost one of its finest former head coaches, and the man that led the team that may have been the Minnesota Vikings’ greatest rival during the 1970s.

Chuck Knox, who coached the Los Angeles Rams, the Buffalo Bills, and the Seattle Seahawks in his head coaching career, passed away on Sunday at the age of 86.

Knox was the coach of the Rams twice, as he led the team from 1973 to 1977 and then again to end his coaching career from 1992 to 1994. During his initial five-year stretch with the Rams, they won the NFC West every season. More impressive was that they won those five straight division titles with five different primary quarterbacks.

However, the Vikings were the one team that they couldn’t seem to get past in the postseason. The Vikings defeated the Rams in the NFC Championship Game in both 1974 (to advance to play the Pittsburgh Steelers in Super Bowl IX) and 1976 (to advance to play the Oakland Raiders in Super Bowl XI). The Vikings and Rams also met in the postseason in 1977, this time in the famous “Mud Bowl,” and Minnesota came out on top once again.

The “Mud Bowl” was the last game Knox coached for the Rams (in his first tenure with the team), as his contract ran out and he signed to be the head coach of the Buffalo Bills. After five seasons in Buffalo, his contract ran out again, and in 1983 he started his nine-season run as the head coach of the Seattle Seahawks. Knox returned to Los Angeles to coach the Rams again from 1992 to 1994, after which he hung up the whistle for good. He was the first coach in NFL history to lead three different teams to division titles, as he reached that goal in Los Angeles, Buffalo, and Seattle.

Knox’s son, Chuck Knox, Jr., was also a coach in the NFL, and spent six seasons on the Vikings’ coaching staff in various capacities on the defensive side of the ball.

We here at The Daily Norseman would like to send our condolences to the family of Chuck Knox.