Gil Brandt, Dallas Cowboys Director Of Player Personnel, Died At 91, Friend, NFL Draft Pioneer - ATLNews

Gil Brandt, Dallas Cowboys Director Of Player Personnel, Died At 91, Friend, NFL Draft Pioneer, Part of The Dallas Organization When I became a Dallas Cowboys Fan starting in 1976 it wasn't just because of the flashy offense or the Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders, it was because of the work of the quartet of men who made up what was called "The Dallas Organization". Clint Murchinson, Tex Schramm, Tom Landry, and Gil Brandt were team owner, president, head coach, and player personnel director, and each reflected the emerging corporate management process that made its advent in the 1960s. That was the birth of the computer revolution, and indeed, the personal computer was invented in 1962, the same year I was born. It was the decade that saw the United States overtake and wildly surpass The Soviet Union in The Space Race, and eventually put a man on the Moon. It was the same decade that launched the advertising workers that were what we now call "Mad Men", thanks to the popular TV show starring John Hamm. And it was known as a decade of process: system dynamics, Robert S. McNamara, and the development of modern management. It was reflected in the at work style of the day: suits and ties and hats for men, and long dresses with blouses and jackets for women. It was a period where we learned about having objectives and that we established goals to meet those objectives. All of that became part of the organizational makeup of the Dallas Cowboys. To better understand how the Cowboys came to be is to understand who these men were from a professional perspective, because to use any other point of view was to miss the point. All of the men - Clint Murchison, Tex Schramm, Tom Landry, and Gil Brandt - went to major colleges, with Murchinson earning a masters degree in math at MIT, Tom Landry earning an engineering degree from the University of Texas, and an master's degree in industrial engineering from The University of Houston, Schramm earning his journalism degree at the University of Texas, and Gil Brandt landing his education at the University of Wisconsin. In other words, all of the Dallas Cowboys managers learned a way of thinking that prized process and analytics. While its understood for Landry and Murchison, where the focus was engineering and math, it must be considered that journalism is a field based on the execution of a process of gathering information. And Gil Brandt's bent was analytics, and in his pursuit of a personnel job in football, first with the Los Angeles Rams, and then the Dallas Cowboys, his talent for seeing patterns of physical behavior that could be applied to a football team flourished. Gil's interest in what became computerized scouting was as much encouraged by the educational backgrounds of his business partners as his own desire to develop the approach. Thus, the Cowboys were a product of the 1960s Organization Man, and arguably, it's an approach completely lost on many of the NFL organizations of today. Computer analytics is given to interns and their role is just left of what we used to call "grunt work". Its no wonder many NFL football game plans are so very ill-considered compared to their 20th Century Counterparts. It also explains why Bill Walsh's West Coast Offense - very much the product of another person trained as an "organization man" - is still the premier offensive approach today. Indeed, such terms as "primary" and "secondary" receiver are a basic part of modern football today. That's why Gil Brandt's work has been of such importance to the National Football League. Brandt essentially created a kind of formal process way of evaluating football players and football talent that used the computer to, (again, that word) process information. After all of that, I will also miss Gil Brandt's warmth and friendship. He was always ready to share a view on teams or players or schemes, and delighted in talking about the glorious history of The Dallas Cowboys. He emerged from the carnage that was Jerry Jones' purchase of the Cowboys and sad the firing of the legendary Tom Landry, and did so unscathed. Not bad. Gil Brandt, Rest in Peace.
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