Professional Football Researchers Association Forum

In recent years some excellent Cowboys have made the HOVG despite not even making the Cowboy's Ring Of Honor.
Its time for DE George Andrie to join these ranks as well.
Of course he benefitted from lining up next to Bob Lilly like his teammate Jethro Pugh, another potential member but Andrie was a great player in his own right and clutch in postseason play.

Counting postseason statistics, he has over 100 career sacks despite playing on a flex defense that reacted more than attacked. He played the run as well and was a big reason the team contended for championships from 1966-1972, finally winning it all in SB VI ...

Then there is his postseason play. In both the 1966 and 67 NFL Championship games against GB, Andrie had two or more sacks while scoring a defensive TD in the 67 Ice Bowl game. His rush was relentless throughout the frigid conditions, as the offense struggled with receivers keeping their hands in their pants to stay warm.

With the Cowboys defense putting it together again during the 1970 postseason, his safety scored against Detroit helped seal the shutout and the defense did another great job against Brodie and the 49ers the next week to close out Kezar Stadium with a chance to finally play in the Super Bowl. Against the Colts, his pass rush helped force interceptions from John Unitas and his hit on him forced him out of the game but just like in the Ice Bowl game before, the Cowboy's offense was abysmal while losing a brutally, physical game ...

His interception of John Brodie allowed the Cowboy's to score a huge TD in the 1971 NFC Championship game that helped nail down their second SB appearance, where the defense was once again excellent shutting down the Miami team to only three points as the Cowboys finally won it all.

Andrie was All-Pro and had multiple Pro Bowls and will be my first choice as a new member to this great researchers association, to enter the Hall Of Very Good and I hope others help him get elected sooner rather than later ...

I've always liked Andrie. As you mentioned, he had a knack for coming up with big plays in the postseason (worst expression in sports history: "big time players make big time plays in big time games") and he had a few big sack years. Andrie played at Marquette right before they dropped their football program, so he was still playing in the NFL after his college had stopped playing football (not quite a Dave Krieg story, but interesting nonetheless).

John Turney wasn't as high on Andrie as I thought he would be. In the PFJ DE rankings, Andrie is in the middle of the pack with a bunch of other good-not-great DEs. While Andrie was a consistent pass rusher, he wasn't a pass-rusher extraordinaire like a Harvey Martin or even a Jack Gregory. His postseason success was aided by the fact that the Cowboys always made the postseason in the first place, much like Drew Pearson. I guess I would have to hear more about how Andrie can be distinguished from other DEs with similar resume`s.

The Browns were stupid for letting Gregory go but he wasnt as clutch in the postseason as Andrie was, though he played well against the Cowboys. Both extremely underrated and Andrie was durable as well, missing only three games in his career. According to Talkoffamenetwork/Si.com, they quoted John Turney as describing him as "A poor man's Doug Atkins" ...