(TNS) – Tim Rooney, a former NFL scouting executive who won two Super Bowls with the Giants and three with the Pittsburgh Steelers, died Tuesday. He was 84.

Rooney died at UPMC Shadyside hospital in Pittsburgh after a short battle with cancer, his nephew, Todd Stewart, told the Daily News.

For 14 years, Rooney was the Giants’ director of pro personnel, joining the team in 1984, just two years before their Super Bowl XXI triumph over the Denver Broncos. Over the following four years, Rooney worked closely with coach Bill Parcells and general manager George Young to build another Super Bowl champion, leading to the team’s second title in Super Bowl XXV.

“Any player I suggest has to fit the standards set here by George Young and Bill Parcells for that particular position,” Rooney told the New York Times in the middle of that championship season in 1990.

Born in Pittsburgh, Rooney was the nephew of Steelers founder Art Rooney Sr. His football career began as a coach at Villanova University, but it wasn’t long before he rejoined the family business as a scout in 1972.

“Now, I was a Rooney — nothing like nepotism! But I had coaching experience,” Rooney told a Steelers blog in 2020. “I wasn’t married — so I could travel easily.”

But if Rooney was a nepotism hire, he quickly proved his worth to the Steelers. He played an integral role in the team’s draft strategy throughout the 1970s, and he was in the room for the teams’ famous 1974 draft, when they selected four future Hall of Famers, the bedrocks of a team that went on to win four Super Bowls and define the decade in the NFL.

Rooney was credited as the man who scouted the team’s fearsome middle linebacker, Jack Lambert, during a practice at Kent State, though he later chalked it up to luck.

“I watched the scrimmage, and he was so strong from the waist up. Long, strong arms. I watched him move around and his instincts,” Rooney explained in 2020. “I don’t think it took me to find Jack Lambert. I was just the first to see him.”

After three championships with the Steelers — in 1974, 1975 and 1978 — Rooney left the family business for a larger role with the Detroit Lions. Though his time in Detroit was relatively unremarkable, Young hired him as the Giants’ pro personnel director in 1984.

The Mara family, which owns the Giants, has been friends with the Rooneys for decades, and the two clans are even related through marriage.

“Hiring him was one of the smartest things I ever did,” Young told the Times in 1999, shortly before Rooney retired. “I leaned on him a lot.”

Though many former NFL players, coaches and executives have a tough time staying away from the game, Rooney committed fully to retirement after 1999. He lived in Hoboken for some time before moving back to Pittsburgh, enjoying the comforts of life with family after years spent on the road hunting for hidden gems.

“It’s been rewarding and fun,” Rooney told The Times, “but now I really want to take control of my life and do what I want to do, which will include lots of traveling and sailing.”