One man is Mike Holmgren, the Browns’ president, Shurmur’s boss. Another is Shurmur’s uncle, Fritz Shurmur, the revered defensive coordinator who won a Super Bowl with Holmgren in Green Bay, who followed Holmgren to Seattle, found out he had cancer and died in 1999 before the season started.
Fritz Shurmur last coached in the N.F.L. in 1998. His nephew first coached in the N.F.L. in 1999. On Sunday, with the Seahawks in Cleveland — in the 37th consecutive N.F.L. season with a Shurmur on the sidelines — Holmgren and Pat Shurmur will probably remember how they ended up here, both in part because of Uncle Fritz.
“My dad interviewed for the Browns job in 1989,” Scott Shurmur, Pat’s cousin, said. “So when they hired Pat, when Mike hired Pat, it was just so eerie, a grand design, like it was meant to be.”
Sometimes, in quiet moments, Holmgren entertains Pat Shurmur with stories. Like how he and Fritz would shake hands before games, two religious men who always promised to later forget the salty arguments that inevitably followed. Or how Fritz, on his honeymoon, took his wife, Peggy Jane, ice fishing in Michigan, and caught a 43-inch northern pike.
Mostly, though, when they talk Fritz, they talk football. Holmgren described Fritz as “the consummate football coach,” his highest praise for someone who “taught defense and taught it well and wasn’t caught up in publicity.”
Fritz wrote four books on defense, drawing on real-life innovations. In Los Angeles, with the Rams in 1989, he ran a 2-5 scheme, heavy on linebackers and defensive backs, out of necessity. In Green Bay, he sometimes dropped Gilbert Brown, a 325-pound defensive tackle, into pass coverage. In 1994, his Packers’ unit held the Hall of Fame running back Barry Sanders to minus 1 yard on 13 carries in a playoff game.
Raised in blue-collar Michigan in a devout Catholic family, Fritz played football at Albion College. He then accepted a graduate assistant post there in 1954. Among his initial charges was Joe Shurmur, his younger brother by 10 years. “Dad always felt like Fritz was harder on him,” said Pat, who sometimes baby-sat his cousins.
Pat went to Michigan State, played center, served as captain on the Spartans’ Rose Bowl team in 1987. With Fritz in Los Angeles, the family descended on Southern California for a reunion that centered, appropriately, on football.
After college, Joe joined the Navy, went to medical school at Michigan and became an orthopedic surgeon. His son, like his brother, went into coaching. And in an avuncular career swap, Fritz’s son became a doctor.
Joe’s death, to cancer in 1996, drew Pat and Fritz closer, with coaching their connection. By then, Pat guided tight ends at Michigan State and worked with special teams. His uncle always told him to be patient, to not look too far ahead. In 1999, Fritz recommended Pat to the new coach in Philadelphia, Andy Reid, but first warned his nephew, “Don’t screw it up.”
By then, Fritz and Holmgren had joined forces. For much of the 1980s, they had matched wits; Holmgren as an offensive force in San Francisco, Fritz his defensive foil with the Rams.
Holmgren went to Green Bay in 1992. Two seasons later, when his team’s defensive coordinator job opened, Fritz was his first choice. They complemented each other: two men who considered themselves teachers as much as coaches, a defensive expert and an offensive one. As they grew closer, Holmgren turned to Fritz for advice beyond football, with family and with faith.
“I honestly think he loved my dad,” Sally Ann Shurmur said.
The 1996 season culminated at the Super Bowl, where the Packers beat New England and Fritz, a longtime coordinator who never became an N.F.L. head coach, validated his life’s work. Pat Shurmur watched the triumph at Michigan State. The rest of the family attended the game and the victory party. A photo of Sally Ann’s parents holding the Lombardi Trophy that night hangs in the entryway of her home.
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