How fitting that Ernie Zampese’s demise Monday in La Mesa, at age 86, coincided with stories of a further NFL limited stop moving close to a significant-money deal.

The innovative initiatives some 4 many years in the past of Zampese, who used his entire 26-calendar year NFL profession as an assistant coach or expert, abetted the transformation of the Chargers’ Kellen Winslow into a Corridor of Famer who broadened the alternatives for agile restricted ends these types of as the Raiders’ Darren Waller, the latest beneficiary, to arrive.

“He was a genius,” former Chargers managing again Hank Bauer, who played and coached underneath Zampese, stated Monday. The Washington Commanders, who employ a single of Zampese’s sons, Ken, as their quarterbacks coach, declared the death.

On a broader scale, previous coaches and players reported Zampese’s layouts and teachings fueled passing game titles that built soccer much more entertaining not only in San Diego, where Zampese spent 9 several years apiece with San Diego Point out and the Chargers, all beneath head coach Don Coryell, but also in Dallas, Los Angeles and in other places.

“Ernie was doing things in the ‘70s and the ‘80s that individuals right now imagine are new and it isn’t,” stated Norv Turner, a Zampese protégé and former Chargers head coach underneath whom Antonio Gates, the NFL’s chief in touchdown receptions by a restricted stop, invested 6 seasons. “If Don Coryell were listed here now,” Turner instructed ESPN’s Chris Mortensen, “he’d convey to you.”

Zampese worked only two years as a head coach, not considerably from his Santa Barbara upbringing. He claimed he didn’t delight in that journey at Hancock Junior College, where he succeeded his good friend and former boss, John Madden, in 1964.

Preferring the life of an offensive assistant, he did not pursue head-coaching careers, even as his star rose.

“A great deal of times, I felt he must have taken it,” Joyce Zampese, his wife, told the Los Angeles Moments in 1987. “But which is me, not him….