The Dallas Cowboys. thanks primarily to Gil Brandt, were leaders when it came to being innovative in where they would look to find players. Brandt didn’t limit his search to football players, rather he searched other sports such as track and field, basketball and more. He didn’t only look where no one thought of looking, he looked where they refused to as well.
The Cowboys entered the NFL in 1960, the same year the AFL was founded, creating a rivalry for collegiate players. After the NFL had banned Black players for 13 seasons, integration was still very slow to return to the league as major college programs didn’t recruit Black players very often. To make matters worse, NFL teams would rarely if ever scout HBCU programs, which all of the best talent ended up going to. Historically Black Colleges and Universities had the nation’s best talent, but they had no avenue to the league.
The AFL didn’t have the same issues and the competition for talent led the NFL to loosen their unwritten mandates. The Cowboys, of course, weren’t a part of that past. Brandt had no such reservations and wasn’t afraid to challenge the norms, so when looking back at the best HBCU players to get a shot in the NFL, it’s no shocker the Cowboys have 7 of the top 51 players identified by Touchdown Wire.