Just a few days after announcement by the PFWA (Pro Football Writers of America) that Arizona Cardinals head coach Bruce Arians was honored for his professional conduct with the media, Cardinals assistant head coach Tom Moore was also honored by the PFWA.
Moore, along with Titans assistant head coach Dick LeBeau and retired Dante Scarnecchia have been selected as the Class of 2015 for the Paul "Dr. Z" Zimmerman Award.
The Dr. Z Award is given for lifetime achievement as an assistant coach in the NFL. The award is named for Zimmerman, who covered the NFL for 29 years as Sports Illustrated's lead pro football writer.
Zimmerman's writing career was cut short by a series of strokes in November 2008 that left him unable to speak, read and write. But his impact on the writing and football industries was profound. He's widely considered one of the best football writers of all time, and his 1970 "A Thinking Man's Guide to Pro Football" and revised 1984 "The New Thinking Man's Guide to Pro Football" are textbooks to this day for young football writers trying to learn the game and trying to learn to write about the game. He was an offensive lineman at Stanford and Columbia, played on the offensive line for a U.S. Army team and a semi-pro football team. His first shot at covering pro football regularly was for the New York Post in 1966. In 1979, he moved to SI. When he was struck down, Zimmerman was still writing multiple columns a week for the magazine and its website, SI.com. He lives in Mountain Lakes, N.J., with his wife, Linda.
Moore's resume:
In his 37th season as an NFL assistant coach, Moore is in his third season with the Arizona Cardinals as assistant head coach/offense after returning to the sidelines after spending the 2011 (New York Jets) and 2012 (final five weeks with the Tennessee Titans) seasons as an offensive consultant in retirement. He started his coaching career at his alma mater, Iowa, as freshmen team coach (1961-62). After a two-year stint in the U.S. Army (1963-64), where he coached a division team in Korea and the post team at Fort Benning, Georgia, Moore returned to the college ranks, first as the offensive backfield coach at Dayton (1965-68), then offensive coordinator at Wake Forest (1969), offensive backfield coach at Georgia Tech (1970-71) and backfield coach at the University of Minnesota (1972-73). He got his first taste of pro coaching in 1974 with the WFL's New York Stars as an offensive assistant. Moore returned to the University of Minnesota as offensive coordinator (1975-76), before coming to the NFL with the Pittsburgh Steelers as wide receivers coach (1977-82), and later, offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach (1983-89). He joined the Minnesota Vikings as assistant head coach/quarterbacks (1990) and was assistant head coach/offensive coordinator (1991) before moving to wide receivers coach (1992-93). Moore was the Detroit Lions quarterbacks coach (1994) before a promotion to offensive coordinator (1995-96), and he served as the running backs coach for the New Orleans Saints for one season (1997). He is best known for his time with the Indianapolis Colts as offensive coordinator (1998-2009) and senior offensive assistant (2010), where he coached several record-breaking offenses and tutored quarterback Peyton Manning during his first 13 seasons in the NFL with the Colts. He has coached in four Super Bowls (XIII and XIV with Pittsburgh; XLI and XLIV with Indianapolis).