ESPN's Top 20 NFL Coaches Ever

Translation: You've been caught talking out the wrong end of your anatomy, again, and you don't like it.

 

So who gets the credit for drafting those 1970 Cowboys, who were probably as loaded as the Steelers?

 

There is no way to figure this out, but I wonder how much organization and preparing the player to be a pro has to do with the success of the draft.

Does Tom Brady still become Tom Brady if the Lions or Browns take him in the sixth round?

 

A lot of circumstances played in Brady's favor: he was drafted onto a team that already had a borderline HoF quarterback, the backup blew, the quarterback coach (RIP, Dick Rehbein) was pretty damn good and took a lot of interest in grooming him.

 

whoa, fellas, let's say you find neutral corners to sit in while you cool down. meanwhile, please allow me to weigh in as a voice who covered the nfl for almost 30 years -- it is true that gil wasnt a highly respected scout by peers around the league. he was/is viewed as a very good self-promoter who thorougly enjoyed taking credit for building the cowboys by being ahead of his time, which he was in terms of organizing the cowboys personnel dept. (which was very progressive in the number of scouts they had culling the country for obscure prospects) but remember, back in the day a team's coaching staff had much more time to play an active role in evaluating college propsects and landry was the best talent evaluator the cowboys had. without running down the list of players who became cowboys because of landry's evaluation vs. gil's evaluation, let me just offer this: when jerrah jones bought the pokes and dumprf landry, schramm, brandt and their staff, gil was only about 55 -- yet he was not hired by any other team, whereas, say, a bill polian went from building the bills to building the expansion panthers and then raising the colts back from the dead, because teams couldnt wait to have him bring his personnel touch into their sorry organization, gil hasnt worked for anyone but the cowboys, he had to be bailed out by pete rozelle and used as the nfl's personnel voice. and no one was better at p.r. jnow-how than pete. who better to become the league's draft face than gil brandt, the renowned personnel guru who built 'america's team'? it was a perfect marriage: rozelle helped gil save face by becoming a league employee when no teams were interested in a has-been/never was of a personnel fraud. gil had himself a high-profile, no-risk job and the league got itself a most credible voice for reporters and radio stations to go to if they had no active personnel types to use to fill their space or time.

i've got no horse in this race. i've long respected oop as a board member, for example. i just disagree with his passionate defense of gil, who -- in my informed opinion -- deserved to be called out here. perhaps in a kinder, gentler way. gil has long been a very reliable voice to go to in a pinch...

 

Good post. So it was Landry behind those drafts?

I could believe that.

 

Landry had teams with great defenses. Great offenses. Passing offenses. Running offenses. He brought the shot gun to (or back to) the NFL, which changed pro football.

He's a top 10.
Landry was the DC for the Giants when Lombardi was the OC. Similar coaching styles with opposite personalities.

 

of course landry was the decision-maker. the cowboys were HIS team; brandt worked for him, not vice-versa.

 

Oh hell no.

And what becomes of Terry Bradshaw if the Bears win the coin toss in 1970?

 

Thing is, shockey, I'm not defending Brandt. I'm just questioning fart boy, as I question any poster who tosses stuff out there that he can't back up. Fart boy keeps trying to trade on credibility that he doesn't have. I am quite sure he knows no more about what Gil Brandt did or didn't do with the Cowboys than I do.

I'm more inclined to believe you based on what I've seen of your history here, though I still take it somewhat with a grain of salt. No offense. I take pretty much everything on this board that way unless somebody can back it up with real sources. You could be anybody. So could I. That's the good and the bad of most of the posters here being anonymous.

 

i capice, my SportsJournalists.com brother. all is cool. 8)

 

Good question. It's not like Noll handled his development particularly well. Bradshaw struggled badly for a while. But he did have the help of four other Hall of Famers on offense in Pittsburgh (Harris, Swann, Stallworth and Webster).