ENGLEWOOD, Colo. — Upon hearing former Denver defensive coordinator Larry Coyer had passed away, I thought of him standing outside the sanctuary of the Great Commission Baptist Church in Fort Worth, Texas, where an estimated 2,700 mourners, including the entire Broncos’ team, gathered on Jan. 7, 2007, for the funeral ceremony of Darrent Williams.
A week earlier, Williams, a two-year starting cornerback for Coyer’s defense, had been shot and killed following a downtown Denver New Year’s Eve party. A vibrant, likable personality, Williams’ death at 24 years old shocked the region.
The 3 1/2-hour ceremony included a video tribute to Williams that played on two large, overhanging screens, pallbearers dancing and singing down the aisles while lifting high Williams in his casket and a horse-and-carriage hearse transport to the cemetery.
"He was a superstar, wasn't he?" Coyer said as hundreds filed past us in the church hallway. "That was a tremendous service. That's how it should be."
The definition of a true gentleman and one of the NFL’s most underrated defensive coordinators, Coyer died Friday, two months shy of his 80th birthday, after a short illness his family said.
Coyer was the Broncos’ linebackers’ coach and defensive coordinator for seven seasons from 2000-06. Football business being what it is, Coyer was fired the day after Williams' funeral. Broncos head coach Mike Shanahan later said firing Coyer after the 2006 season was one of his biggest regrets.
Coyer especially shined during the Broncos’ 13-3 season of 2005, when his heavy blitz strategy, a defensive line built on former Cleveland Browns’ Gerard Warren, Courtney Brown, Michael Myers and Ebenezer Ekuban, and an otherworldly season by cornerback Champ Bailey pushed Denver to the NFL’s No. 3-ranked scoring defense at 16.1 points per game.
During the regular season, Coyer’s Broncos blitzed 246 times on passing downs – more than 15 times a game – which was second to the Steelers’ Blitzburgh defense’s 287 times. In Denver’s case, it wasn’t just the blitz but the all-out blitz Coyer often called as he trusted his three cornerbacks, the veteran Bailey and two rookie cornerbacks Williams and Domonique Foxworth.
As it turned out, Denver and Pittsburgh met in the AFC Championship Game at then-named Invesco Field at Mile High but it wasn’t the Broncos’ day as they lost, 34-17 as Steelers quarterback Ben Roethlisberger was uncanny at converting third-and-longs all game long.
Coyer later became defensive coordinator for Peyton Manning’s Indianapolis Colts from 2009-11 – reaching the Super Bowl in 2009 only to lose to Sean Payton’s New Orleans Saints.
Coyer was such a standout defensive back for Marshall University in the early 1960s he was inducted into the school’s Hall of Fame in 1987.
Counting high schools, colleges, the NFL and USFL, Coyer coached or scouted for 21 teams in his 50-season career.
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