Gold Jack Spotlight: Even Big Men Like Dan Dierdorf Can Create Separation

“None of us fell out of bed great.”

So declared 1996 Pro Football Hall of Fame enshrine and Canton, Ohio, native Dan Dierdorf.

The six-time Pro Bowl offensive tackle offered that observation while speaking with students during a “Heart of a Hall of Famer” session. 

“It wasn’t preordained for any of us,” Dan said. “We had to do something to separate ourselves from everyone else.”

One of Dan’s points of separation was his ability to, as he describes it, retain “singular focus.” The former St. Louis Cardinals lineman, who this week steps into the Gold Jacket Spotlight, once described going through his years in the NFL “like I had blinders on; like I was a racehorse. I saw nothing but the upcoming game and my upcoming opponent. I had the ability to rule everything out and make it inconsequential.”

Dan’s football career was anything but inconsequential. 

After earning All-America status at the University of Michigan, Dan was selected by the Cardinals in the second round (43rd player overall) in the 1971 NFL Draft. He was named All-Pro five years and headed an offensive line that Cardinals head coach Don Coryell dubbed the “Mean Machine.” As a unit, it yielded the fewest sacks in the NFC for five consecutive years in the 1970s, three times leading the NFL.

During comments made while presenting Dan for enshrinement, St. Louis Cardinals offensive line coach Jim Hanifan noted another aspect that distinguished Dan from others.

“What really separated him apart from so many of the others (was) he had intelligence and he had attitude,” Hanifan said. “He truly never made a mental mistake.”

Hanifan said the greatest compliment a coach can give to a player is using him as an example to teach younger players. 

“And I have, for many years, used Dan’s film footage of him in action – and yes, in practice – to show my young ones this is how you can do it,” Hanifan said.

Dan began preparing for his post-playing career as a broadcaster by logging hundreds of hours on KMOX radio in St. Louis while playing for the Cardinals. Legendary broadcasters Jack Buck, the station’s sports director, and Bob Costas were on the KMOX staff at the time.

“I knew it was what I wanted to do. I was just fortunate enough that I got a shot in radio, and that pretty quickly transitioned to television,” Dan told listeners of “The Mission” podcast.

Dan joined the “Monday Night Football” broadcast team in 1987, working with Al Michaels and Hall of Famer Frank Gifford. He held that position for 12 years, making Dan the longest-tenured analyst in the history of the program that made its debut in 1970.

After departing the “Monday Night Football” team in 1999, Dan served as an analyst for CBS until retiring in 2013. He declared, “I never worked with a bad play-by-play announcer. I was blessed.”

In addition to Michaels, his play-by-play partners included Dick Enberg, Greg Gumbel, Verne Lundquist, Lindsay Nelson and Ray Scott.

Similar to Dan’s success and recognition as a player in the NFL are the success and accolades he achieved in broadcasting. One of his highest honors was receiving the Pete Rozelle Radio-Television Award in 2008. The award, named after the former NFL commissioner and Hall of Famer, is given annually by the Pro Football Hall of Fame in recognition of “longtime exceptional contributions to radio and television in professional football.”

This path to broadcasting led to a combined 43 years as a player and broadcaster in which Dan spent every Sunday during a football season in an NFL stadium.

After retiring from CBS, Dan joined former University of Michigan teammate Jim Brandstatter from 2014 through 2021 in the school’s radio broadcast booth. 

“I had forgotten how much fun it can be to be on a college campus on a Saturday afternoon,” he said not long after his final broadcast.

Dan might have not fallen out of bed great, but he certainly separated himself with a stellar NFL and broadcasting career.