Bobby Beathard, the architect of four Super Bowl-winning teams with two distinct companies throughout his long football career, has died. He was 86.
Bobby Beathard died Monday at his home in Franklin, Tennessee, less than a week after his 86th birthday, according to a Washington Commanders representative. The reason for death was not immediately known.
Bobby Beathard was Miami’s director of player personnel for two NFL titles in the 1970s and Washington’s general manager for two more in the 1980s.
He also worked as a scout for Kansas City when the Chiefs won the AFL championship and advanced to Super Bowl I following the 1966 season, and he was the Chargers’ general manager when they arrived in the mid-1990s.
Bobby Beathard was a member of seven Super Bowl-winning teams
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He was elected into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 2018. In 2016, Washington inducted him into the organization’s Ring of Honor.
“Throughout his career, Bobby not only constructed winning teams, but he also developed winning cultures that endured beyond his years with an organization,” Pro Football Hall of Fame president Jim Porter said in a statement. “He had an eye for talent as well as a distinct talent for dealing with others. The outcomes speak for themselves.”
Bobby Beathard previously worked as a scout with the Atlanta Falcons, but he is best remembered for his work with Don Shula’s Dolphins, who won back-to-back Super Bowls before hiring coach Joe Gibbs and drafting Darrell Green, Art Monk, and others during his tenure in Washington.
Bobby Beathard left that position in 1989, before Washington won a third Super Bowl with a core he built, and went into television until being appointed as the Chargers’ general manager in 1990. He was with them for a decade, including leading the team to the Super Bowl before losing to the San Francisco 49ers, however, he nearly resigned before the 1994 season due to a disagreement with owner Alex Spanos.
Dean Spanos, Spanos’ son, stepped in and took over day-to-day operations. Bobby Beathard stayed, and the Chargers went on to win their lone Super Bowl.
Dean Spanos, the Chargers’ current owner, and chairman named Bobby Beathard “one of the finest judges of football talent in NFL history” in a statement.
“He was the best general manager in football, but he was also the guy sitting on his surfboard in the ocean with whom you caught waves, jogged trails besides, and spoke in the local market checkout line,” Spanos said. “He was just an ordinary person who happened to be anything but ordinary. Bobby was truly wonderful. He was a one-of-a-kind individual. And he will be sadly missed.”
During his more than three decades in the NFL front office, Beathard despised first-round picks and thrived in taking chances on players from out-of-the-way universities, a tactic that paid handsomely.
Sports Illustrated dubbed him “The Smartest Man in the NFL” in 1988, a label he despised
“That was kind of embarrassing,” Beathard admitted before being inducted into the Hall of Fame in 2018. “I told whoever put that in there when it originally came out, ‘Well, you best go back and ask my high school and college teachers if that’s accurate because I don’t think they’d agree with that.'”
The Commanders expressed their sympathies in a statement, calling Beathard “a man of tremendous character and integrity” who “cared passionately about everyone he worked with and always placed the team first.”
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