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State Your Case: Ralph Neely
Former Dallas tackle Ralph Neely is so good that he was an all-decade choice whom Willie Davis once called the toughest tackle he ever faced. So why isn't he in Canton? Good question. Talk of Fame Network:
There are two Dallas offensive lineman in the Pro
Football Hall of Fame, Rayfield Wright and Larry Allen. But there should be a third. Ralph Neely. Neely played with Wright on the great Dallas teams of the 1970s, and there was no better pair of tackles. Wright manned the right side; Neely manned the left and together they helped make the Cowboys one of the most productive offenses and most successful teams anywhere. So why isn’t he in Canton? I wish I knew.
“He could slide, he was light on his feet, he had long arms and he was athletic as hell,” said Gil Brandt, former head of player personnel for the Cowboys and now a Sirius XM NFL radio host. “He was just too good coming out of college to be a second-round pick.”
JAN 25, 2022
Dallas saw something in him that others did not, with Brandt saying the Cowboys had him ranked as their fifth-best player that year. “If I were talking to Hall-of-Fame voters,” said Brandt, “I’d tell them to look at our record from 1965 when he arrived, and see how the team responded until the end of his career.”
OK, so let’s see: In 1965, Neely’s rookie season, the Cowboys were 7-7. A year later they were 10-3-1 and led the league in scoring with 445 points. Then they were 9-5. Then 12-2. Then 11-2-1, 10-4 and 11-3. I think you get the idea. In Ralph Neely’s 13 seasons with Dallas the club reached the playoffs 11 times, the Super Bowl four times and won two Lombardi Trophies. They were 131-49-2, and Neely was there for the entire ride, playing every game in 10 of those years and all but two in 12 of the 13.
“I don’t think anyone then had any idea how important offensive linemen were,” said Brandt. “But we did. That’s why we made him (Ralph) a tackle.” And a damned good one.
“Do I think he’s a Hall of Famer?” said Brandt. “I do.”
"I do, too, but I’d like to hear more. That’s why I’d like to see Ralph Neely discussed by the Hall’s board of selectors. For too many years Ralph Neely’s been buried under a pile of yesterday’s forgotten stars, and it’s time we discover just what we missed." We owe him that. We owe the Hall that, too. BY TALKOFFAME - MIKE FISHER- SI Sports Illustrated
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