The greatest player to ever take the field for the Dallas Cowboys was drafted because personnel director Gil Brandt was talking to another team about a potential trade and was also hungry so grabbed some food. Thus, he left general manager Tex Schramm alone when the time came for the Cowboys' 10th-round selection in the 1964 NFL Draft.
Schramm was a genius when it came to marketing, media, branding and business in general, but he wasn't a nuts-and-bolts football guy, and certainly wasn't watching or scouting much, if any, college games. So when the Cowboys went on the clock to make their pick, and he couldn't find Brandt, Schramm wrote down the one name he recognized:
Roger Staubach.
The Heisman Trophy winner from the Naval Academy couldn't join the team for another five years, his military commitment taking him to Vietnam for a stretch with the Cowboys sending him footballs every few months to toss around. After finally joining the club in 1969, Staubach started just four games, throwing three touchdowns and 10 interceptions in his first two seasons.
When the 1971 campaign then kicked off, Staubach was less than six months away from turning 30 years old, the same age at which fellow Ring of Honor quarterback Don Meredith retired.
For the rest of the decade, though, there was no better quarterback on the planet. Named to the first-team All-1970s squad, Staubach led the league in passer rating and wins over the 10-year span while carrying Dallas to four Super Bowls and two Lombardi Trophies. He captured the Bert Bell Award as Player of the Year in 1971, took home MVP honors in Super Bowl VI, and earned six Pro Bowl invites.
His heroics late in games led to the nickname "Captain Comeback." At the time of his retirement, his 21 career game-winning drives ranked fifth in league annals, although the four men ahead of him all played at least 17 seasons, Staubach only 11. He also had 13 fourth-quarter comebacks.
"It was never a mindset of will Roger win the game. It was just can we, as a defense, get the ball back to him with enough time?" teammate and fellow Hall of Famer Randy White said. "If Roger had the ball at the end of a game, we won that game. I've never been around another person who commanded that kind of confidence. He never let us down."
To say Staubach is competitive is like saying the sun is warm. He once challenged Michael Jordan to a one-on-one matchup, ran 10 miles in Las Vegas after a round of golf when it was 118 degrees, and never, ever shook hands with an opponent after a game. Not to mention, he is one of the richest NFL players of all time through his post-career real estate and commercial enterprises.
But there was also a kindness, a sense of duty and an appreciation of his place in the world, which was recognized in 1978 with his Walter Payton Man of the Year Award. To this day, Staubach has always signed an autograph request, be it in person or by mail, and no one in franchise history has helped out former teammates more financially. He's sent countless checks, bought cars, paid rent, saved lives really, all with the humbleness of a colorblind only child from Cincinnati.
When NFL Films produced a documentary on him in 2014, toward the end the narrator stated, "In most films, this is where the skeletons come out of the closet," to which former teammate Charlie Waters said, "No one is going to find anything wrong with him because he does everything right."
The numbers are all that and a Thanksgiving feast: The second-highest winning percentage among league quarterbacks with at least 100 starts to only Tom Brady, the second-highest passer rating behind Otto Graham before the West Coast Offense changed the game in the 1980s, and the architect of the "Hail Mary," a phrase in which he coined. There's no telling the story of the NFL without Roger Staubach.
That's not the only reason he's the greatest player in Cowboys history, though. Simply put, when the franchise became America's Team, it was with him behind center.
In 2019, Staubach was also named to the NFL All-Century Team, the ultimate honor for any player. First-ballot Hall of Famer, Ring of Honor member, best of the best, American hero, beloved family man, role model for all. There is only one.
Roger Staubach.