4 Cowboys players plus a coach make all-time 7th round NFL draft team
Draft watchers know the seventh round is when things tend to get wacky. A left-footed punter? Sure, it’s the seventh round. The lacrosse player from the tiny school no one’s ever heard of with the insane 40 time whose great-great-grandfather once played for the Pottsville Maroons? Why not?… and let’s have the pick announced by a rollerskating penguin while we’re at it. Heck, these days, the last guy taken in the seventh is actually called “Mr. Irrelevant” for the rest of his life.
But as we were all reminded watching Brock Purdy last season, there is considerable talent to be mined in the seventh round. After all, as recently as 1991, the draft featured 12 full rounds of selections; prospects taken in the seventh were considered mid-rounders.
Just to prove that the seventh round shouldn’t be an afterthought for NFL squads next weekend in Kansas City, longtime Cowboys reporter Rick Gosselin went back through the archives to assemble the All-Time Seventh-Round NFL Draft Team.
Led by quarterback Ryan Fitzpatrick, the team is studded with star playmakers like Bo Jackson, Jamal Anderson, and Shannon Sharpe. And that’s just the offense.
The Cowboys are exceptionally well-represented on a stacked roster that not one of today’s top teams would ever consider irrelevant. Remember these names when the picking seem slim on Saturday afternoon of draft weekend.
HC Bill Parcells, 7th round, 1964 draft
IRVING, TX – OCTOBER 16: Head coach Bill Parcells of the the Dallas Cowboys watches his team take on the New York Giants on October 16, 2005 at Texas Stadium in Irving, Texas.The Cowboys defeated the Giants 16-13 in overtime. (Photo by Doug Benc/Getty Images)
He’s in the Pro Football Hall of Fame as one of the winningest head coaches in NFL history, even though he never played a down as a professional player. And yes, he was a seventh-round draft pick.
Originally a student at Colgate, Parcells turned down a contract to play baseball with the Philadelphia Phillies. He transferred to the University of Wichita (now Wichita State) and focused on football, starting out as a linebacker before moving to offensive tackle. In 1964, he was drafted 89th overall (that was the seventh round then because there were only 14 teams) by the Detroit Lions but was released by the team before ever getting in a game. The story goes that Parcells quit after an unseasonably hot practice session during training camp. He took up coaching at the college level that fall, after deciding against a career either in law or as a Pizza Hut franchisee.
Over his 19 years as an NFL head coach, Parcells became the only man to lead four different clubs to the playoffs and three to a conference title game. He won two Super Bowls with the Giants and then coached the Patriots and the Jets before going 34-30 over four seasons in Dallas, his last sideline stop.
WR Bob Hayes, 7th round, 1964
FILE – In this Dec. 3, 1967 file photo, Dallas Cowboys wide receiver Bob Hayes catches a touchdown pass from Don Meredith as Baltimore Colts’ Rick Volk pursues during a football game in Baltimore. Now that Hayes is going into the Pro Football Hall of Fame, people hearing his story for the first time are going to wonder what took so long. Simply put, he changed the game, bringing Olympic gold-medal speed to pro football. (AP Photo/File)
Even in 1964, the Cowboys were prone to rolling the dice in the seventh round. Bob Hayes had been a two-time gold medal winner in the Tokyo Summer Olympic Games the year prior, with sprint times in both the 100-meter and 4×100-meter relay that earned him the title “The World’s Fastest Human.”
Hayes had attended Florida A&M on a football scholarship, but his track prowess largely kept him off the gridiron. U.S. president Lyndon Johnson even specifically asked his FAMU football coach to dismiss him from team responsibilities to allow him proper time to train on the track ahead of the ’64 Games.
Despite all of that, the Cowboys sensed that his speed could be lethal in the NFL. They used the 88th pick in 1964 (yes, the pick immediately before Parcells) to secure the rights to Hayes before his college eligibility had even expired, on the chance that they could turn him into a wide receiver.
It worked. Hayes’s speed revolutionized NFL defenses, causing cornerbacks to use bump-and-run techniques for the first time and almost single-handedly forcing the invention of the zone defense. (All pass coverage had been man-to-man before he came along.)
Over 10 seasons as a Cowboy, “Bullet Bob” logged 365 receptions and 71 touchdowns, with 7,295 receiving yards to his credit. He helped the team win Super Bowl VI, was a three-time Pro Bowler and four-time All-Pro, and is a member of both the Pro Football Hall of Fame and the Cowboys Ring of Honor.
OT Rayfield Wright, 7th round, 1967
Jan 16, 1972; New Orleans, LA, USA; FILE PHOTO; Dallas Cowboys tackle Rayfield Wright (70) in the huddle against the Miami Dolphins during Super Bowl VI at Tulane Stadium. The Cowboys defeated Dolphins 24-3. Mandatory Credit: Dick Raphael-USA TODAY Sports
That Rayfield Wright lasted until the 182nd pick in the 1967 draft boggles the mind, at least in hindsight. The offensive tackle is a two-time Super Bowl champ, a six-time Pro Bowler, a six-time All-Pro, a gold-jacket enshrinee in Canton, immortalized in the Cowboys Ring of Honor, and a member of the NFL’s 1970s All-Decade Team.
It seems obvious now that he was bound for football greatness, but coming out of tiny Fort Valley State, the massive Wright was a better basketball prospect who had only played football- and failed at four different positions- just to keep his athletics scholarship. The Cowboys took a seventh-round flier on the enormous-but-nimble Wright, put him on his very first plane ride, and signed him to a contract with no idea how they’d use him.
After two years at tight end, Coach Tom Landry turned him into a tackle. He earned the nickname “Big Cat” for his play there and had quarterback Roger Staubach once famously say about him, “If he got beat, I don’t remember it.”
Men like Jack Youngblood, Carl Eller, and L.C. Greenwood, the greatest pass rushers of his era, all placed Wright among the best they ever faced. The Hall of Famer (and onetime sixth-overall draft pick) Eller once said, “An all-day fight with Rayfield Wright definitely is not my idea of a pleasant Sunday afternoon.”
DT Leon Lett, 7th round, 1991
31 Jan 1993: Defensive lineman Leon Lett of the Dallas Cowboys runs with the ball after recovering a fumble during Super Bowl XXVII against the Buffalo Bills at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, California.
Lett is so much more than the two on-the-field gaffes he’s best remembered for. But during the lead-up to the 1991 draft, he was barely remembered at all.
A combination of poor grades and course-credit issues all resulted in Lett, an Alabama native, ending up at Emporia State University in Kansas. Then, battling a knee injury, he wasn’t invited to any senior all-star games or even the NFL scouting combine.
Even after being selected 173rd overall in 1991- the 14th of an incredible 18 draft picks amassed by Dallas that year- Lett didn’t make an impact until his second season with the Cowboys. He became one of the most feared defensive linemen in the game over ten years with the team, though, appearing on three Super Bowl-winning teams and earning two Pro Bowl nods.
But his outstanding playing career was always overshadowed by two infamous blunders. Before a worldwide audience in Super Bowl XXVII, he was just steps away from scoring with a 65-yard fumble return… before the ball was knocked out of his outstretched hand by Bills defender Don Beebe, who had chased him down from behind.
Then in 1993’s Thanksgiving Day game against Miami, in sloppy field conditions left behind by a freak November snowstorm, Lett booted a blocked field goal, turning what would have been a dead ball into a live one that the Dolphins recovered. They would re-attempt the kick and win the game.
After his playing days, Lett got into coaching and ended up back in Dallas. He was the team’s assistant defensive line coach from 2011 until this past offseason, when he was one of five Cowboys coaches let go in a massive turnover of the staff.
DT Jay Ratliff, 7th round, 2005
PHILADELPHIA – NOVEMBER 08: Jay Ratliff #90 of the Dallas Cowboys reacts after he sacked Donovan McNabb #5 of the Philadelphia Eagles at Lincoln Financial Field on November 8, 2009 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. (Photo by Al Bello/Getty Images)
Undervalued coming out of Auburn and undersized his whole career, Ratliff didn’t let either stop him from becoming a seventh-round star. As a rookie in 2005, the tackle was actually eyed as a defensive end in the Cowboys’ new 3-4 defensive scheme. By 2007, he had become the team’s starting nose tackle and dominated offensive lineman who were usually much bigger.
Ratliff made four straight pro Bowls over seven-plus seasons in Dallas and then finished his career in Chicago. Cowboys Wire named him the 54th-best player in franchise history: quite a return on a guy who was the 224th player taken overall in his draft class.
