DALLAS — Rayfield Wright, one of the most decorated and dominant offensive linemen in Cowboys history, has died, the Pro Football Hall of Fame announced Thursday.
He was 76.
Referred to as “Big Cat” by teammates, Wright made five Super Bowl appearances in his 13 seasons with the club. He was selected first- or second-team All-Pro in six consecutive seasons and earned a spot on the NFL’s All-Decade team for the 1970s.
Wright was the first offensive lineman in franchise history to earn a spot in the team’s Ring of Honor and the Hall of Fame. He was followed by Larry Allen.
They remain the only two.
Leading up to his death on Thursday, Wright was hospitalized for more than a week following a “severe seizure,” the Hall of Fame reported.
“I love blocking, love the contact,” Wright once said. “There’s a lot of satisfaction in knowing that you’re moving your man out of there. Biggest of all is to put my man on the ground — I’m on top of him and the ball carrier is 10 to 15 yards downfield.
“That’s satisfaction.”
Wright was enshrined into the Hall of Fame on Aug. 5, 2006. Early in his speech, he spoke of learning about the Robert Frost poem “The Road Not Taken” in eighth grade. Wright said his instinct was always to take the easy road, but he found, “the easy road never came my way.”
Born on Aug. 23, 1945, Wright was raised by his mother and grandmother in Griffin, Ga., a small community outside of Atlanta. The family didn’t have much. He remembered kneeling next to his grandmother when he was 10, praying to God for some ability that would allow him to lift his family out of poverty.
Wright was good enough in basketball that Loyola University reserved a spot for him, but financial hardships persuaded him to select a career in the Air Force. A short time later, Stan Lomax — the man who presented Wright at Canton — was hired to coach the football and basketball team at Fort Valley State University.
The 6-foot-6 star excelled at both. He averaged 20 points and 21 rebounds as a junior and was approached by the Cincinnati Royals to jump to the NBA, but he stayed to complete his education.
During his senior year, Wright received a phone call from Gil Brandt. The Cowboys vice president of player personnel told the athlete the club was interested in drafting him.
“For what?” Wright asked.
Dallas selected Wright, a defensive end at of Fort Valley State, in the seventh round of the 1967 draft. Only one other player from that Cowboys’ class achieved any sort of lasting success on the professional level.
A receiver out of Kentucky named Pat Riley, who went on to NBA fame, was taken by Dallas four rounds later.
Wright was among 14 draft picks and 137 rookies who were invited to camp that year. Wright figured if he didn’t make the Cowboys he would go to Royals camp later in the summer.
Five rookies made the Cowboys that season. Wright was one of them.
The Cowboys used him at tight end, along with some snaps in the defensive line, over his first two seasons. He caught two passes in his NFL career for 27 yards, one of them a 15-yard touchdown pass from Don Meredith against Philadelphia.
Long after their careers were over, Wright asked Meredith if he remembered throwing that touchdown pass. The quarterback laughed.
“Rayfield, I wasn’t throwing the ball to you,” Meredith said. “You were just so tall, you got in the way.”
Tom Landry called Wright into his office heading into the player’s third season and told him he would be moving to the offensive line. Wright responded he had never played the position.
The Cowboys head coach said he knew, but told Wright that he was quick, fast and needed to play in the line because they had a new quarterback who didn’t like to stay in the pocket and ran around a lot.
It was Roger Staubach.
“He was absolutely the best,” Staubach once said. “Rayfield was a big, strong guy that was able to transfer his size and strength from tight end to tackle. He also had such quick feet that he was able to deal with some of the faster defensive ends and even the linebacker blitzes.
“If he got beat, I don’t remember it.”
Wright played behind Pro Bowl right tackle Ralph Neely for most of the 1969 season, but did start three games after the veteran was injured. His first start came against Deacon Jones of the Los Angeles Rams. Offensive line coach Jim Meyers warned Wright that Jones was big, strong and mean
“Well, so am I,” Wright responded.
It was the first of 113 starts at the position for Wright. He quickly became a Pro Bowl fixture in the team’s offensive line along with left guard John Niland.
One of the players who went against Wright during those years was Minnesota defensive end Carl Eller, who made it to the Hall of Fame two years before his Cowboys foe.
“An all-day fight with Rayfield Wright is not my idea of a pleasant Sunday afternoon,” Eller has said. “I think he is pretty much of a composite of an All-Pro tackle. He has size, strength and quickness.
“The big thing in Rayfield’s favor is that he has a lot of range. He moves faster than most tackles. He’s just difficult to play against.”
In the spring of 2012, nearly six years after his induction, Wright was diagnosed with dementia.
