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Charley Winner
No. None     
Head CoachSt. Louis Cardinals (1966-1971)
Personal information
Date of birth: (1924-07-02)July 2, 1924
Place of birth: Somerville, New Jersey
Career information
Debuted in 1954 for the [[{{{debutteam}}}]]
Last played in 1992 for the [[{{{finalteam}}}]]
Career history
Career highlights and awards
  • N/A
Win-Loss Record     44-44-5
Winning %     .500
Games     93

Charley Winner (born July 2, 1924) was a football coach whose professional and personal life was closely intertwined with that of Weeb Ewbank, another coach.


TEAMS AWARDS MEDIA BOOKS STATS TRADING CARDS IMAGES

Winner was born in Somerville, New Jersey, and during World War II flew 17 missions in a B-17 Flying Fortress plane, spending six weeks in a German prisoner of war camp. Upon his release from the service, he played running back at Washington University in St. Louis, where Ewbank was head coach. After Ewbank moved on to coach for the Cleveland Browns, Winner took an assistant position with nearby Case Tech, and also served as a scout for the Browns. In 1950, he also married Ewbank's daughter.

When Ewbank was hired as head coach of the Baltimore Colts in 1954, Winner went along and helped the team capture NFL titles in both 1958 and 1959. At the conclusion of the 1962 NFL season, Ewbank was dismissed, but Winner stayed under new coach Don Shula from 1963 to 1965.

On February 10, 1966, Winner was hired as head coach of the St. Louis Cardinals. In five seasons at the helm, Winner managed a 35-30-5 record, but after failing to reach the postseason, was fired on January 6, 1971.

The Cardinals posted winning records in three of Winner's five seasons with the Cardinals, but fell achingly short of the playoffs each time. In 1966, the Cardinals started out 5-0 but lost four of their last five games to finish at 8-5-1 and in fourth place in the NFL East. In 1968, St. Louis finished one-half game behind the Cleveland Browns (9-4-1 to 10-4) in the NFL Century Division despite sweeping both regular-season meetings with the Browns. In 1970, St. Louis rolled to an 8-2-1 record at the end of November, including three consecutive shutouts over the Houston Oilers (44-0), Boston Patriots (31-0) and Dallas Cowboys (38-0 on Monday Night Football in Dallas). But with the NFC East championship in sight, the Cardinals stumbled in December, losing to the Detroit Lions, New York Giants and Washington Redskins to finish at 8-5-1 and in third place in the division behind Dallas and the Giants.

Winner wasn't out of work long, as he was soon hired by George Allen of the Washington Redskins. Winner worked two years for the Redskins, helping them reach the NFL playoffs during each season and their first Super Bowl berth ever in 1972. On February 1, 1973, he rejoined Ewbank as an assistant with the Jets and was also designated his successor following the end of the 1973 NFL season. Winner struggled to achieve success with the Jets, finishing 7-7 in 1974, needing to win the season's final six games to reach the .500 mark. The following year saw the team win only two of the first nine games, a decline that resulted in his dismissal on November 19, three days after a 52-19 loss to the Colts.

Two months later, Winner was hired as an assistant with the Cincinnati Bengals, spending the next four years with the team before once again being fired following the 1979 NFL season. Renewing acquaintances with Don Shula in 1981, Winner was hired to serve as player personnel director for the Miami Dolphins. He spent two years in that role before shifting to pro personnel, performing many of the same duties as a general manager, especially negotiating player contracts. On June 1, 1992, he announced his retirement.

Head coaching record[]

Team Year Regular Season Post Season
Won Lost Ties Win % Finish Won Lost Win % Result
STL 1966 8 5 1 .615 4th in NFL Eastern - - -
STL 1967 6 7 1 .462 3rd in Century Division - - -
STL 1968 9 4 1 .692 2nd in Century Division - - -
STL 1969 4 9 1 .308 3rd in Century Division - - -
STL 1970 8 5 1 .615 3rd in NFC East - - -
STL Total 35 30 5 .536 - - -
NYJ 1974 7 7 0 .500 3rd in AFC East - - -
NYJ 1975 2 7 0 .222 T-4th in AFC East - - -
NYJ Total 9 14 0 .391 - - -
Total 44 44 5 .500 - - -

External links[]

Preceded by
Walt Michaels
New York Jets Defensive Coordinator
1973
Succeeded by
Richard Voris

This page uses content from Wikipedia. The original article was at Charley Winner.
The list of authors can be seen in the page history. As with American Football Database, the text of Wikipedia is available under the GNU Free Documentation License.

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