NFL Power Rankings: 30 best TE of all-time

No. 14 Jackie Smith, St. Louis Cardinals / Dallas Cowboys

A monument to consistency and longevity, Jackie Smith lasted for 16 years and made 5 Pro bowls. Smith is our first Hall of Fame tight end on the list. His greatest season came in 1967, when he caught 56 passes for 1205 yards and 9 touchdowns. Even a couple decades removed from his retirement in 1978, he is still sixth overall in career receiving yards among tight ends. He was even the starting punter for his first three seasons in St. Louis, and he ended his career as the all time leading receiver among tight ends with 7,918 yards.

Of course, Smith is remembered in infamy for his one appearance in the Super Bowl. Having toiled for 15 years in St. Louis with only 3 playoff appearances, Smith signed with Dallas for his final season in 1978. He was used solely as a blocking tight end in goal line situations that year, not logging a single reception.

This was a loaded Cowboys team on a collision course for a rematch with the Steelers in Super Bowl XIII. Smith actually had a good game for the ‘Boys, logging 3 receptions for 38 yards and a touchdown. But it’s his dropped pass in the end zone as the Cowboys attempted to come back from a 21-14 deficit that will be a lasting memory.

The play was memorialized in print:

"Originally published as “Smith hates for it to end like this” in the Jan. 22, 1979, edition of the Miami News. Reprinted here with the author’s permission. Darrell Smith sat there and listened quietly. What he heard hurt him, but he didn’t speak. He looked down at the floor. He fidgeted and fumbled with a small Instamatic camera he had brought to the game. Six feet away, his dad, just out of the shower, stood nude. And the sportswriters, dozens of them, swooped in immediately and stripped him even further. “Why did you drop it?” “Will this play stand out in your mind 10 years from now?” “Is this the biggest disappointment of your career?” “What’s going through your head?” “Are you embarrassed?” “Do you think you cost Dallas the game?” “Tell us about it again, will you?” “Will you watch the play on films?” For 45 minutes, Jackie Smith, the veteran tight end of the Dallas Cowboys, stood in front of his Orange Bowl dressing room stall and took it. It hurt him. It hurt his 14-year-old son. Pittsburgh had just beaten Dallas, 35-31, in Super Bowl XIII. The biggest heartbreak of the game for Dallas had come with 2:30 left in the third quarter. The Cowboys, trailing 21-14, had a third-down-and-three-yards-to-go situation on the Pittsburgh 10-yard line. Using a run offense (double tight ends), Dallas completely fooled Pittsburgh’s defense. Smith slipped into the end zone and stood there all alone as Cowboy quarterback Roger Staubach floated a pass a bit low to him. It looked like a sure touchdown. But Smith slipped just as he was about to make the catch, and the ball bounced off his hip pad and fell harmlessly onto the painted grass of the end zone. An incredulous gasp arose from the Dallas fans. Their Pittsburgh counterparts went berserk. And Jackie Smith sat there in the end zone, stunned. The field goal unit came in and Smith walked off. Super Bowl XIII was to be the ultimate reward for Smith. A month shy of 39, he was the oldest man on the field yesterday. He had toiled so long and so well over the years for the St. Louis Cardinals that Cowboys owner Tex Schramm had guaranteed Smith was “surefire Hall of Fame” material. No tight end in the history of pro football has caught more passes (483) or gained more yards on receptions (7,956) than Jackie Smith. But in his 15 seasons with the Cards, he never made it to the pinnacle of his profession. So after last season, he retired. A Cardinal doctor had warned him that he would risk paralysis if he kept playing with the nagging neck injury he had had for two seasons. When the St. Louis pre-season camp opened this year, Smith wasn’t there. He was with his son in the mountains of New Mexico."

Jackie Smith was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1994.

Next: The No. 13 Tight End in NFL History