Bill Walsh did not invent the West Coast Offense.  The principles of the scheme go back as far as the 1930's, when TCU Coach Dutch Meyer taught QB Sammy Baugh the three "S's" of the passing game: short, sure, and safe.

     "Everybody loved to throw the long pass" Baugh recalled.  "But the point Dutch Meyer made was, 'Look at what the short pass can do for you.'  You could throw it for seven yards on first down, then run a play or two for a first down, do it all over again and control the ball.  That way you could beat a better team." (1)

     Beating better teams was the mandate handed to Walsh in Cincinnati when injuries forced him to design game plans with weak armed  Virgil Carter at QB.  What he came up with was a melding of Sid Gilman's number system and Dutch Meyer's principles.

     Then, as now, NFL defenses placed a premium on defending the run first.  Walsh exploited this philosophy by designing pass route combinations that ran into the gaps left open by standard base defenses: slants by the wide receivers, flat and crossing routes by the tight ends, and wheel routes by the running backs.  While defenses emphasized strength, Walsh emphasized quicknessand accuracy.  

     He didn't invent "read and react" to the offense.  That, again was a Gilman touch.  But Walsh built his sytem around the personnel he had, playing to their strengths and expertly exploiting favorable match-ups.  Montana, Rice, Rathman, Cooper, Craig, Clark, Solomon, Taylor,... it was a perfect storm of the right players in the right system at the right time.  Combined with a defense that to this day remains under-rated, they dominted the NFL throughout the 80's, into the 90's, and may well have been the last dynasty in league history.

     The West Coast Offense is now a staple across all levels of football from pee-wee leagues to the pros.  It is the legacy of Bill Walsh to have dusted off an old idea and reinvented it to such an extent that defenses to this day scramble to figure it out.
 

1. Redskins: A History of Washington's Team, Washington Post Books,2000 p.11