Former Cardinals head coach Don Coryell elected to Pro Football Hall of Fame

Former Cardinals head coach Don Coryell was elected to the Pro Football Hall of Fame Class of 2023 on Thursday night.

The announcement was made at Symphony Hall in Phoenix during the 12th annual NFL Honors as a part of Super Bowl week leading up to the big game on Sunday.

Coryell receives the honor posthumously after he passed away in 2010 at the age of 85.

Air Coryell is headed to Canton. pic.twitter.com/L3Q7AlFHGh

— Arizona Cardinals (@AZCardinals) February 10, 2023

“Don Coryell was a leader, an innovator and truly deserving of enshrinement in the Pro Football Hall of Fame,” Cardinals owner Michael Bidwill said in a press release. “His impact on the sport was profound, particularly in revolutionizing the passing game that is so prolific today.

“As head coach, he led one of the most successful and exciting periods of Cardinals football. Coach Coryell will always have a special place in our organization’s history and now he will forever have a place in Canton among the game’s all-time greats as well.”

Coryell was the Cardinals’ head coach from 1973-77 when the team was still in St. Louis, where he had a 42-29-1 record in his tenure at the helm.

His 42 victories rank as the third-highest win total in franchise history to go along with a 1974 division title and AP NFL Coach of the Year award.

The Cardinals were dubbed the “Cardiac Cards” after five games were won in the final minute of the 1975 season and eight of the team’s 10 wins in 1976 were one-possession games.

The “Air Coryell” passing system helped Coryell spend 14 seasons as a head coach in his 36-year career in which he accumulated a 111-83-1 record and five division titles between the Cardinals and Chargers (1978-86).

Coryell was the first coach to ever win more than 100 games at both the collegiate and NFL levels.

He was inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame in 1999 and will be enshrined into Canton on Aug. 5.

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