15 Greatest NFL Draft Steals of All-Time
By Daniel Tran
6. Roger Staubach
Roger Staubach’s journey to legendary status in the NFL only begins with football (we’ll get to the other parts later). We will start with his time at Navy.
In his junior season at Navy in 1963, Staubach won the Heisman Trophy, becoming the last Navy attendee to win the award. He also led Navy to a victory against Notre Dame in the same year, a feat that the school would not accomplish again until 2007.
Though he was the Heisman winner, NFL teams weren’t pining to secure his talent, and he dropped to the 10th round before the Dallas Cowboys drafted him with the 129th pick. Being a graduate of the Naval Academy has a requirement that you have to actively serve upon graduation, so teams shied away from taking Staubach because no one knew when his commission would end.
Staubach could have chosen to serve domestically for the entirety of his time, but he spent a year in Vietnam as a Supply Officer before returning stateside. By the time he finished his service, he was 27 years old and about to be a NFL rookie in 1969. In 1971, he was a full-time starter by midseason and never looked back.
As a quarterback for the Dallas Cowboys, Staubach was a part of a team that would go on to be branded “America’s Team.” He won two Super Bowl Championships, and was selected to six Pro-Bowls by the time he retired in 1979.
A soldier that came back to become America’s quarterback on America’s Team. Hard to believe the Hall of Famer fell so far in the draft.
Next: Bart Starr