Passed away yesterday at age 90. Jim Finks and Jim Mora get the credit for making the Saints a winner, and deservedly so. But many of the players who were the foundation of Mora's winners were brought to the Saints by Phillips, functioning as both coach and GM: Rickey Jackson, Frank Warren, Jim Wilks, Morton Andersen, Bobby Hebert, Eric Martin, Hoby Brenner, Brad Edelman.
I loved Bum. His only downfall was that he stuck with his vets when they were well past their prime. He was a hell of a coach though, and his folksy charm made for some great one-liners. Do y'all remember when some a$$hole 49'ers fan stole his cowboy hat at Candlestick and he shot the bird at them??!!
Remember that....CBS pre-game had fun with that the following week, because they had caught the whole thing on video. Showed Bum walking the sidelines in the seconds before the theft, and the played the Jaws theme over it. As for "stuck with vets past their prime"....that was his own doing. He brought in so many of his former Houston players that someone on the team, as a prank, took down the Saints Dr. sign at the street corner by camp and put up one that said Ex-Oilers Dr. The worst of those sins was his decision to trade George Rogers away in his prime and go with an Earl Campbell who clearly had nothing left in the tank.
Decent football coach, fantastic human being. I had the pleasure of meeting him several times and nobody loved or knew more about football than he did. Always made time to talk to fans no matter what he had going on. The first time I met him was in a grocery store (after he had long been retired) one Saturday afternoon and I struck up a conversation with him about NFL, college, and even local high school football. One of his family members finally came in and very politely told me that he had to go because they were in the car waiting on him on the way to a family reunion. He took at least 10 minutes to talk football to a stranger in a store when he was on the way somewhere with people waiting. Class act.
I'd say it was probably one of the worst trades in Saints history, but I was young at the time and don't quite remember what Rogers did after that. I know he liked the nose candy and it eventually cost him his NFL career, but I don't know how many good years he had after he went to the Skins. Campbell, on the other hand, had tired legs and was so beat up from all the hits he'd taken and given over the years that he was basically ineffective. That was back in the days when one RB, especially a star, avg 30-35 carries a game.
