There are officially 68 days until the toe meets the ball at AT&T Stadium where the Dallas Cowboys will host the New York Giants on NBC’s Sunday Night Football.
Welcome back for another Tuesday at Inside The Star! It’s hard to believe that we are inside of 10 weeks from kickoff and approximately a month away from preseason football action! I know that you’re starving for sports. You tried to appease yourself with the Women’s World Cup, but all there is now is baseball. Pretty soon the Little League World Series will be on and then we really won’t know what to do with ourselves.
I know what we can do today; we can unveil the Greatest 68 in Dallas Cowboys History.
The following players have all worn #68 for the Dallas Cowboys:
- Michael Batiste, OG
- Jim Boeke, OT
- Frank Cornish, C
- Doug Free*, OT
- Crawford Ker, OG
- Matt Lehr, OG
- Guy Reese, DT
- Oliver Ross, OT
- Noel Scarlett, DT
- Herbert Scott, OG
*Active player on the Dallas Cowboys roster
Doug Free has been a staple on the Dallas Cowboys’ offensive line for the last few years. He’s morphed into quite the right tackle and team leader. Everyone likes to make a big fuss about the first round picks and the young guys up on the line, but Doug Free deserves a lot of love. He’s been moved around the line various times and has accepted team-friendly deals to remain a Cowboy.
He’s not our Greatest 68, but he is an incredible Cowboy and slated to have a big season in 2015.
Herbert Carnell Scott was drafted in the 13th round of the 1975 NFL Draft, making him part of the famed “Dirty Dozen” with Randy White and Thomas “Hollywood” Henderson.
He spent the 1975 season becoming more seasoned as a professional and made enough improvements that the team felt comfortable trading John Niland, our Greatest 76 in Dallas Cowboys History, to the Philadelphia Eagles.
This move would pay off significantly, not only in that Scott would become quite an offensive guard himself, but also the pick attained from the Niland trade was used to select the Greatest 80 in Dallas Cowboys History, Tony Hill.
Herbert became the starting left guard in 1976 and never looked back.
He was exactly what you want in an offensive lineman:
- hard worker
- punishing
- rarely penalized
This era of Cowboys History featured quite the offensive line, nicknamed “Four Irishmen and a Scott” by center John Fitzgerald (the line featured Fitzgerald, Scott, Jim Cooper Tom Rafferty, and Pat Donovan). This crew would help pave the way for running back Tony Dorsett and his Hall of Fame career. In fact it was Herbert Scott and Tom Rafferty that made the block that broke Dorsett free on his iconic 99-yard touchdown run in Minnesota during the Vikings’ first prime-time game at the Metrodome at the tail end of the 1982 season.
Scott accomplished a lot during his ten-year-tenure in Dallas. He went to 3 Pro Bowls (1979-1981), was named First-Team All-Pro twice (1980 and 1981), and he was a part of the World Champion Dallas Cowboys that beat the Denver Broncos in Super Bowl XII.
A little unknown fact about Scott … he actually caught Roger Staubach’s final career pass during a playoff loss to the Los Angeles Rams in 1979. Obviously Scott was an offensive lineman and ruled ineligible, but it’s still a fun tidbit from history.
Scott provided this among many other memorable moments in the blue and silver, and he certainly provided us enough proof to deem him the Greatest 68 in Dallas Cowboys History.
Check back tomorrow to find out who the Greatest #67 in Dallas Cowboys History is!
