Shurmur Flew in Face of Mainstream : Commentary: Longtime NFL defensive coordinator, who died of cancer at 67, remembered for innovations such as "the Eagle."

Shurmur Flew in Face of Mainstream : Commentary: Longtime NFL defensive coordinator, who died of cancer at 67, remembered for innovations such as “the Eagle.”

By CHRIS DUFRESNE

Aug. 31, 1999 12 AM PT

TIMES STAFF WRITER

Cancer was the one thing Fritz Shurmur couldn’t defend against. He had everything else zoned and covered.

Leroy Irvin, the Rams’ former Pro Bowl cornerback, used to call Shurmur “the General.”

Whenever Irvin intercepted a pass, he would stand at attention at the point of attack and salute Shurmur.

Today, we stand and salute.

Shurmur, 67, died Monday of esophageal and liver cancer at his Wisconsin home.

Shurmur, architect of Green Bay’s Super Bowl champion defense in 1997, followed Coach Mike Holmgren to Seattle and was set to run the Seahawk defense when cancer was detected last May during a routine checkup.

Shurmur began his coaching career in 1954 as a graduate assistant at Albion College in Michigan, and this season would have been his 20th as an NFL defensive coordinator.

He spent eight of those years with the Rams, 1983 through 1990.

Shurmur was a brilliant tactician, the man who came closest to throwing a monkey wrench into the San Francisco 49ers’ vaunted West Coast offense.

With Shurmur as coordinator, the Rams interrupted the 49ers’ team-of-the-decade reign with an NFC West Division title in 1985 and later, with the Packers, Shurmur’s schemes consistently stymied the 49ers.

Shurmur was unconventional. In the late 1980s he unveiled a two-lineman, five-linebacker scheme he called “the Eagle.”

Then-Philadelphia coach Buddy Ryan, whose man-to-man “46” defense ruled the day, scoffed at Shurmur’s passive zone approach.

Fritz had the last scoff.

In the 1989 NFC wild-card playoff game against Ryan’s Eagles at Veterans Stadium, Shurmur’s defense held elusive quarterback Randall Cunningham scoreless in a 21-7 Ram victory.

Asked afterward if he opposed Ryan’s philosophy, Shurmur grunted, “I disagree like hell with it.”

Shurmur’s regret was never getting the chance to become an NFL head coach.

The Phoenix Cardinals should have hired him in 1990 and didn’t. When the Rams slipped to 5-11 that season, John Robinson fired Shurmur to save his own skin.

Robinson offered Shurmur a chance to stay in a subordinate role; Fritz muttered an expletive and left the complex.

Robinson says the firing was one of his biggest mistakes and tried to phone Shurmur in recent weeks. Fritz wouldn’t take his call.

Shurmur was as good a man as he was a coach. His favorite player was Carl Ekern, a woefully undersized inside linebacker who used brain rather than brawn to survive a decade in the trenches. Late in his career, Ekern made his first Pro Bowl team, and no one was happier than Shurmur.

Had Shurmur gotten the Cardinal job, Ekern would have joined his staff in a heartbeat.

In August 1990, four days before the Rams were to depart for an exhibition game in Berlin, Ekern was killed in an auto accident not long after visiting Shurmur at Ram training camp in Irvine.

The death devastated Shurmur.

“He was one of my favorite people in the world,” Shurmur said then of Ekern. “I don’t know of a guy who gave any more of himself to the game and the job. There hasn’t been a guy in the history of the game that prepared to play the game any better than he did.”

Nine years later, the same can be said of Shurmur.