"He hits hard, a lot harder than a lily," Brown said after the game, making light of Lilly's last name. "He's more like a thorn."

It was no surprise a couple months ago when the Hall of Fame voters placed Brown on their all-time NFL team, and it was also no surprise that Lilly earned a spot on that exclusive 27-man squad.

"A player like Bob Lilly comes along once in a coach's lifetime," said the only pro coach for whom Lilly played during his 15-year career, Tom Landry.

Defensive tackle Bob Lilly was the dominating player in the Cowboys' Flex.(Provided to SportsLine)

After the 1965 season, a year in which the Cowboys reached the .500 mark for the first time in their five-year history, Landry had statistics kept on how many times his defensive linemen broke through their initial blocks. The ends did it 80 times, the tackles, 180. Lilly, of course, was a tackle.

"You have to remember, Bob Lilly makes all these figures look a little silly," said Landry. "What throws these figures out of whack is that Lilly always broke through his first block. Always. And sometimes through the second and third blocks. There is no one man who can contain Lilly. When a man breaks through that first block there's a good chance that he's either going to get to the passer or run into a second block and make it easier for someone else to get to the passer."

After a stellar career at TCU, Lilly became the Cowboys' first-round draft pick in 1961. Cleveland coach Paul Brown coveted tackle Jim Tyrer of Ohio State, but when Tyrer signed with the Dallas Texans of the AFL, he needed a tackle so he got in touch with Landry and offered his No. 1 draft position for Dallas tackle Paul Dickson. Landry gladly accepted, and quickly grabbed Lilly just ahead of the Eagles who were set to pick him.

Landry played Lilly at defensive end for two years and he floundered.

"Then I realized Lilly's temperament was not suited to defensive end," Landry said. "Bob had to be more disciplined in his thinking than he is at tackle. He couldn't take advantage of his talents at end."

Lilly played in an era when defensive linemen ruled the game of football. His contemporaries included Merlin Olsen, Buck Buchanan, Willie Davis, Deacon Jones, Gino Marchetti and Alan Page, all of whom are, like Lilly, enshrined in the Hall of Fame. In some circles, Lilly is considered the best of the bunch.

"Nobody is better than Lilly," Landry said. "He is something even a little bit better than great."

"He knew before the snap where the ball was going all the time," said former NFL coach Marion Campbell. "He was a big-time playmaker who made things happen."

Former Miami Dolphins All-Pro guard Bob Kuechenberg will forever remember the way Lilly blew past him on the way to recording a memorable 29-yard sack of Bob Griese in Super Bowl VI, Dallas' first world title.

"It's hard to believe a man that big can be that fast," Kuechenberg said. "Lilly is the best."