Longtime NFL coach Marty Schottenheimer moved into hospice care
Former NFL head coach Marty Schottenheimer was moved into a hospice facility in North Carolina, his family said Wednesday.
Schottenheimer, 77, was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease in 2014 and was placed in hospice care on Saturday.
“As a family we are surrounding him with love and are soaking up the prayers and support from all those he impacted through his incredible life,” his wife Pat Schottenheimer said in a family statement. “In the way he taught us all, we are putting one foot in front of the other … one play at a time.”
Marty Schottenheimer’s teams went 200-126-1
Schottenheimer is the winningest coach in NFL history without a Super Bowl or NFL championship. He was a head coach for four teams across 21 seasons and was the coach of the 1986 and 1987 Cleveland Browns teams that lost to John Elway and the Denver Broncos in back-to-back AFC championship games by a combined eight points.
He spent one more season in Cleveland after the 1987 season and became the coach of the Kansas City Chiefs for 10 seasons. His Chiefs teams won 10 or more games six times but never won the conference title. K.C. went 13-3 in 1995 and 1997 but lost in their first game of the playoffs in each of those two seasons.
Those losses began a stretch of 22 years without a postseason win for the Chiefs, and they didn’t win a home playoff game until Patrick Mahomes and the Chiefs beat the Indianapolis Colts in January of 2019.
After parting ways with the Chiefs after 1998, Schottenheimer coached the Washington Football Team for a year in 2001 before coaching the San Diego Chargers for five seasons. The Chargers went 14-2 in 2006 — Schottenheimer’s final season as a head coach — and lost 24-21 at home to Tom Brady and the New England Patriots in the divisional round.
Schottenheimer finished his coaching career with a regular-season record of 200-126-1 and is the eighth-winningest coach in NFL history. Only Bill Belichick and Andy Reid have more wins than Schottenheimer among active coaches and Schottenheimer has 55 more wins than Pete Carroll, the third-winningest active coach.
Schottenheimer’s son Brian served as Carroll’s offensive coordinator for the past three seasons and the Seahawks parted ways with Brian in January after losing to the Los Angeles Rams in the wild-card round. Earlier this week, Brian Schottenheimer agreed to become Urban Meyer’s passing game coordinator for the Jacksonville Jaguars.
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