Anderson: I owe a lot to Walsh

Former Bengals quarterback Ken Anderson, now Pittsburgh Steelers quarterbacks coach, fondly recalled his years of working with former Bengals assistant coach Bill Walsh. The Hall-of-Fame coach died Monday at age 75.

Anderson spoke with reporters at Steelers camp in Latrobe, Pa.

"When I first came into the league (1971) he was the first guy I worked with for about five years. He took a kid from Augustana College and made him into an NFL quarterback. I owe a lot to him. He’s obviously been a very important person in my life."

Did Walsh earn his genius label? "I think without question. To develop a style of offense that was successful in the early 1970s and well into the '90s, it showed the test of time what his offense did."

That's the West Coast Offense? "Yeah, that was his baby and was run effectively for a lot of years."

"He was just so important for so many people. You look at the quarterbacks who he touched, starting with Greg Cook, a No. 1 draft choice. And here the guy goes and leads the AFC in passing at that time. I followed (Cook), and it goes on to the Montanas and the Rices and he worked with Dan Fouts, who had a good year. ... I go back to the amount of hours he and I spent together early in my career, which was the basis for everything I know about playing quarterback."