ATLANTA – Dan Reeves’ talents off the football field were recognized early on by Tom Landry.
Reeves was still suiting up for the Dallas Cowboys when Landry, the franchise’s longtime head coach, made him an assistant during the twilight of his playing career.
At 37, Reeves landed his first head coaching job, pulled off a trade to acquire quarterback John Elway and built the Denver Broncos into a powerhouse that reached the Super Bowl three times in a four-year span. At the final stop of nearly four uninterrupted decades in the NFL, Reeves guided the Atlanta Falcons to their first Super Bowl.
The only blemish on his record: four blowout losses in the big game.
Reeves, who did win a ring as a player with the Cowboys but will be remembered mostly for a long, largely successful coaching career marred by those four defeats, died Saturday of complications from dementia. The Georgia native was 77.