The man who touched the ball on nearly every play of the Cowboys’ first meteoric rise to glory in the 1970s and was a key component of one of Tom Landry’s greatest contributions to modern football, has passed away.
John Fitzgerald, a center for the team from 1971 to 1980, died Tuesday at the age of 77. During that span, he appeared in 137 games and made 109 starts. And that’s counting just the regular season; he played over a full season’s worth of playoff contests- 19- and made another 13 postseason starts during a decade-long run that saw the team go to four Super Bowls and win two of them. Perhaps most impressive, the Cowboys never finished with a losing record while Fitzgerald was on the roster.
Fitzgerald was a fourth-round draft pick out of Boston College in 1970. A two-way collegiate player with the Eagles, the Cowboys tried him first on the defensive line. After spending his rookie season on the practice squad, he moved permanently to offense in 1971, initially as a guard before finally finding his home at center.
Landry’s 1975 offense resurrected the seldom-used shotgun formation for quarterback Roger Staubach, but it required a precision snap of five yards (then) or more from the center. After a few misfired long snaps in earlier seasons, Fitzgerald eventually found he could routinely do it without looking back between his legs.
“It took some adjustment,” Fitzgerald said at the time. “If you’re going to get the ‘bleep’ knocked out of you, at least it’s nice to see where it comes from.”
The shotgun snap finally caught on for good around the league and forever made the center position more valuable as a result, especially in Dallas. Legendary names like Tom Rafferty, Mark Stepnoski, Andre Gurode, and Travis Frederick would follow in Fitzgerald’s footsteps, establishing a longstanding tradition of excellent Cowboys centers.
Thursday would have been Fitzgerald’s 78th birthday.
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This article originally appeared on Cowboys Wire: Longtime Cowboys center who helped popularize shotgun formation passes away at 77
Reporting by Todd Brock, Cowboys Wire / Cowboys Wire
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
