Mike Gaechter isn’t the kind of name that jumps off the page to most Cowboys fans, but when it comes to No. 27, he’s the standard. Long before Trevon Diggs, Eddie George or Jourdan Lewis wore the number in Dallas, Gaechter carved out a place in franchise history and held onto one record for nearly 50 years.
The Cowboys have had a long list of players in No. 27, including Courtney Brown, Mario Edwards, Thomas Everett, Ron Fellows, Eric Frampton, Mike Gaechter, Eddie George, Cletis Gordon, Tommy Haynes, Jayron Kearse, Keylon Kincade, Jourdan Lewis, Singor Mobley, Amani Oruwariye, Akwasi Owusu-Ansah, Curvin Richards, Reddy Steward, Bill Thomas, Greg Tremble, Marvin White and J.J. Wilcox.
Trevon Diggs wore it as a rookie before moving to No. 7 in his breakout second season, when he tied a team record with 11 interceptions and earned First-Team All-Pro honors. George had the number during his lone year in Dallas in 2004, and Lewis wore it for the first three seasons of his eight-year run with the team.
But the best of the bunch goes back to the early years of the franchise. Undrafted in 1962 out of Oregon, where he played both football and track alongside future Cowboys legend and Hall of Famer Mel Renfro, Gaechter signed with Dallas as a free agent and earned a starting spot at cornerback as a rookie because of injuries around him.
He made that opening count. Gaechter finished with five interceptions that season, second on the team behind only Pro Bowler Don Bishop’s six.
One of those picks turned into a piece of team history. Against the Philadelphia Eagles in Week 5, he intercepted backup quarterback King Hill near the goal line late in the fourth quarter and returned it 100 yards for a touchdown in a 41-19 Cowboys win after Sam Baker’s extra-point attempt.
That return stood as the longest interception return in Cowboys history for 48 years, until Bryan McCann went 101 yards for a touchdown against the New York Giants in 2010. Those remain the only triple-digit interception returns in Dallas history.
Gaechter later moved to safety in his second season and added three more interceptions, including an 86-yard return that still ranks as the eighth-longest in team history. Across eight seasons with the Cowboys, he piled up 21 interceptions.
His run likely could have been even bigger if not for the ruptured Achilles he suffered in a loss to the Los Angeles Rams in the meaningless Playoff Bowl after the 1969 season, a third-place game the NFL used to play. He missed all of 1970, then was traded in 1971 to the team now known as the Washington Commanders, who cut him before the regular season started, ending his career.
It may not be the flashiest No. 27 in Cowboys history, but it belongs to Gaechter.
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