{"id":252173,"date":"2026-04-16T06:54:13","date_gmt":"2026-04-16T06:54:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/252173\/"},"modified":"2026-04-16T06:54:13","modified_gmt":"2026-04-16T06:54:13","slug":"former-dallas-cowboys-center-john-fitzgerald-dies-at-77-team-announces","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/252173\/","title":{"rendered":"Former Dallas Cowboys center John Fitzgerald dies at 77, team announces"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Former\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.dallasnews.com\/sports\/cowboys\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:Dallas Cowboys;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" data-yga=\"{&quot;yLinkElement&quot;:&quot;context_link&quot;,&quot;yModuleName&quot;:&quot;content-canvas&quot;,&quot;yLinkText&quot;:&quot;Dallas Cowboys&quot;}\" class=\"link \">Dallas Cowboys <\/a>center John Fitzgerald has died at the age of 77, the team announced Tuesday.<\/p>\n<p>Fitzgerald played on Dallas&#8217; offensive line in\u00a0the 1970s, originally starting his tenure with the team as a backup guard. He later moved to center, where he started 109 games for the Cowboys.<\/p>\n<p>Advertisement<\/p>\n<p>Fitzgerald won two Super Bowls during his Dallas stint. The first came in 1972, when he was a backup on the Cowboys team that defeated Miami 24-3 in Super Bowl VI. His second title victory came in 1978, when Dallas defeated the Denver Broncos 27-10 in Super Bowl XII.<\/p>\n<p>The Cowboys originally selected Fitzgerald in the 1970 NFL draft&#8217;s fourth round out of Boston College. He played offensive guard and defensive tackle at the collegiate level.<\/p>\n<p>Before he solely focused on the offensive side of the ball, Fitzgerald lined up on defense as a Cowboys rookie.<\/p>\n<p>The offensive lineman spent all 12 seasons of his professional career in Dallas. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.dallascowboys.com\/news\/former-cowboys-center-john-fitzgerald-passes-away-at-77\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:According to dallascowboys.com,;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" data-yga=\"{&quot;yLinkElement&quot;:&quot;context_link&quot;,&quot;yModuleName&quot;:&quot;content-canvas&quot;,&quot;yLinkText&quot;:&quot;According to dallascowboys.com,&quot;}\" class=\"link \">According to dallascowboys.com,<\/a> the Cowboys placed Fitzgerald on injured reserve with a knee issue ahead of the 1981 season. He announced his retirement from the NFL in January of 1982.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Former\u00a0Dallas Cowboys center John Fitzgerald has died at the age of 77, the team announced Tuesday. Fitzgerald played&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":252174,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[10371,102,113,104,103,7706,95394,11723,80,7698],"class_list":{"0":"post-252173","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-dallas","8":"tag-buffalo-bills","9":"tag-dallas","10":"tag-dallas-cowboys","11":"tag-dallas-headlines","12":"tag-dallas-news","13":"tag-denver-broncos","14":"tag-john-fitzgerald","15":"tag-miami","16":"tag-nfl","17":"tag-the-cowboys"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/252173","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=252173"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/252173\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/252174"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=252173"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=252173"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=252173"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}