NFL.com draft analyst Gil Brandt is one of the foremost draft experts in the industry. His knowledge of the game is rivaled by very few, if any, and he's seen in all in seven decades of working around the NFL.
He revealed recently, in an NFL.com piece regarding which teams have the most at stake in the 2014 NFL Draft, when he was working with the Dallas Cowboys, he tried to engineer a trade with Pittsburgh for the top pick.
That pick would be used on Terry Bradshaw, the man behind four Super Bowl victories in Pittsburgh - two of those over the Cowboys.
Writes Brandt:
Prior to the 1970 NFL Draft, when I was working with the Dallas Cowboys, I tried to engineer a swap with the Steelers for the No. 1 overall pick, with the intent of drafting quarterback Terry Bradshaw to play for us. I was turned down by Art Rooney Sr. himself, who said if my interest in the pick was so high, it might be in his best interest to keep it. The Steelers kept the choice and used it on Bradshaw, who went on to win four Super Bowls with the team -- and they haven't gone without a first-round pick since.
Certainly a fine piece of logic on Rooney's part. Obviously the pick worked in their favor, despite some years of turmoil. Brandt had drafted Roger Staubach in the 10th round of the 1969 NFL Draft, so it's not as if it didn't work out well for him anyway. Still, it's interesting to see how things work out; or in this case, the result of things that do not work out.