Dan Reeves’ incredible football accomplishments might fly under the radar for some, but not for Bill Belichick.
The New England Patriots head coach took time during Wednesday’s virtual conference to honor the NFL legend, who died Saturday at 77 years old. To say Reeves, who is an uncle to Patriots center David Andrews, put together an impressive career in football would be a huge understatement.
After three years as a starting quarterback at South Carolina, Reeves signed an undrafted free agent contract with the Dallas Cowboys in 1965 to play safety. However, he eventually moved to halfback and wound up rushing for 1,990 yards and racking up 1,693 receiving yards while winning one Super Bowl over eight seasons in Dallas.
But Reeves truly left his mark as a coach. In 1977, Reeves was hired as the Cowboys’ offensive coordinator and was instrumental in Dallas winning Super Bowl XII that season. He left Dallas after four seasons to take over as head coach for the Denver Broncos, whom he led for 12 seasons. Reeves now is a member of Denver’s Ring of Fame.
He worked as a head coach for another 11 seasons, spending four with the New York Giants and seven with the Atlanta Falcons. Reeves won the Coach of the Year Award in 1993 and 1998. He retired after coaching Atlanta in 2003.
“I always had a good relationship with Dan,” Belichick said Wednesday. “He was at Denver when I was in Cleveland. Of course, he was at Denver when I was with the Giants, going back to Super Bowl XXI, but I didn’t have a lot of relationship with him there. It became more when I was a head coach and then when he went from there to the Giants. I always had a good relationship with Dan. Dan had a tremendous career. I don’t know of anybody, or not many anyway, that you could really stack up with what Dan did. As a player, he was a tremendous player. He was a very important assistant coach on those Dallas teams with Coach (Tom) Landry, and then he went on to have a head coaching career in the National Football League. From start to finish, at all three levels, and I know assistant coaches really don’t get a lot of recognition when you start talking about Hall of Fame and things like that, but when you look at Dan’s career, I don’t know how you could have accomplished much more than what he did on all three levels.”
Belichick added: “When you put the whole body of work together, honestly, I think you could put it up there with just about anybody. Player, coach, when you combine it all, he might not have been the greatest player that ever played or the greatest coach that ever coached, or the greatest assistant coach, but he was very, very successful at all three for a long, long period of time with just tremendous success. I recognize that as just one fantastic career that, as I said, I don’t know how many others you could put in that category. Dick LeBeau maybe, but to me, it’s that level of accomplishment all in the National Football League, besides a great college career at South Carolina. I kind of reconnected with Dan after we drafted David Andrews. I kind of stayed in touch with Dan through David and vice versa. I had some contact with him a little more recently after he had retired from coaching.”
If that doesn’t sell you on Reeves’ accomplishments, this will: He appeared in a combined nine Super Bowls as a player, assistant coach and head coach. Only Belichick and Tom Brady have participated in more.
Reeves, who compiled a 201-174-2 overall record as a coach, is one of only nine coaches in NFL history with at least 200 wins.
