Pro Football Hall of Famer Gil Brandt was the vice president of player personnel for the Dallas Cowboys for 28 years. From the team’s entry into the NFL in 1960 as an expansion franchise to May 1989, he tried every possible way to turn Dallas into “America’s Team” before getting fired by the franchise’s then-new owner and general manager, Jerry Jones.
The NFL world witnessed a major shockwave after hearing that Gil is no more. NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell is among many others to deliver a heartfelt statement after losing the Cowboys’ former pioneer.
Roger Goodell pays tribute to Gil Brandt
Brandt died Thursday at 91 years old, and following the news, Goodell conveyed a heartwarming tribute to the legend while crediting him for changing the landscape of the Dallas squad.
“Gil Brandt was a pioneer in the truest sense of the word. As the personnel architect of the Cowboys for nearly three decades, he transformed the way teams scouted talent by building a player evaluation system using computers”, the statement said.
The deceased veteran with the Cowboys’ former coach Tom Landry and general manager Tex Schramm ensured a successful decade for the Cowboys by posting 20 back-to-back winning seasons from 1966 until 1985. This super trio ensured five Super Bowl appearances for the team and grabbed two championship titles by defeating the Miami Dolphins in Super Bowl VI and the Denver Broncos in Super Bowl XII.
After getting fired by Jones, the former Cowboys icon worked as a senior analyst on the N.F.L.’s website in the mid-1990s. Later, he served as a host on SiriusXM, formerly known as Sirius Satellite Radio. He was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 2019 after being enlisted in the Cowboys Ring of Honor in 2018.
Gil Brandt’s contribution to the development of the NFL team Cowboys
Brandt holds the record of being the first person in the NFL to make use of massive IBM computers to enter number grades for prospects at every position for draft evaluation. Besides that, he is also the first in the league to test prospects’ mental states through psychological testing when they are under pressure.
Through these initiatives, he selected a number of players in the NFL Draft who later earned the accolade of Hall of Fame, including Bob Lilly (1960), Mel Renfro (1964), Bob Hayes (1965), Roger Staubach (1964), Rayfield Wright (1967), Cliff Harris (1970), Randy White (1975), Tony Dorsett (1977), and Michael Irvin (1988). He also provided a helping hand to the Cowboys owner Jones in his first NFL draft in 1989 by selecting HOF Troy Aikman with the first overall pick.
The Pro Football Hall of Fame announced it would keep the Hall of Fame flag in Ohio lowered to half-staff Thursday to pay tribute to the legend. We mourn the loss of a great star of the NFL.
