Getting into the Pro Football Hall of Fame nearly killed Gil Brandt.

This is not about the 86-year-old’s decades of work as an NFL scout and executive or his time working as a respected analyst for NFL.com and SiriusXM, but instead a drive to a tailor.

This month Brandt and his wife, Sara, were driving the 100 miles from their vacation home in Montana to a reputable tailor to make adjustments to the gold jacket he’ll wear as one of eight inductees into the Hall of Fame next week in Canton, Ohio. After missing their exit by 9 miles, a bullet exploded through the left side of their car’s windshield.

“We were out in the middle of nowhere. There were no bridges, no people and ‘Bam!’ we get hit in the windshield with a bullet,” said Brandt, who needed the jacket adjustment after recently losing 20 pounds.

“I don’t know if anyone was taking target practice or what. The police made it sound like finding who shot it would be a needle in a haystack.”

It’s not the only obstacle Brandt has faced in his pursuit of Canton.

Brandt was one of the architects of Tom Landry’s dominant Cowboys teams of the ’70s, among those at the forefront of using computers to help scouting and one of the voices that helped create the NFL Scouting Combine.

He was fired shortly after Jerry Jones purchased the franchise in 1989.

“I told Jerry one time, ‘Thanks for making me a free agent,’ ” Brandt said.

After a couple of years away from the sport, Brandt returned as an analyst for the NFL. The Wisconsin native capitalized on fans’ obsession with the draft, providing live coverage on the league’s website while taking thousands of calls from fans on a radio show he hosted throughout the event. His list of the top-150 draft prospects remains a must-read every year and he hosts a nightly show, “Late Hits,” on SiriusXM.

“It was very important [to stay connected to the league],” Brandt said of getting the Hall of Fame nod as a contributor.

“Sometimes when you leave the league you are forgotten about because there’s somebody new that is the hot ticket. I was very fortunate that I had a two-prong way of doing it: through the NFL and Sirius, which was very important. Sirius carries a lot of weight. … You stay connected to a lot of people, not as much as when you were working in the league, but you still stay connected. I feel very fortunate.”

Brandt, who says he “loves Twitter,” scoffs at the notion the growing technology in the media industry is a hurdle to him staying competitive. And he does have a very active Twitter account with more than 140,000 followers.

“I have no problems keeping up with the draft. I am at the combine, 14 games a year, a lot of pro days, I speak to teams ,” Brandt said. “I am as busy now as when I was a member of the Dallas Cowboys. The only thing I don’t have to worry about now is hearing about it when I make a bad draft choice.”

Still, one technological glitch added a little drama to his Hall of Fame nod. The finalists for Canton were sequestered at their Atlanta hotel during Super Bowl weekend last February and told if they did not make it they would get a call at 3:30, and if they did they would be contacted at 4.

First, 3:30 passed without a phone call. Then, so did 4. Brandt looked at his cell phone, which he suddenly realized was dead.

“I sat there with my wife and didn’t know what happened. Then all of a sudden around 4:15, they knocked on the door,” Brandt said.

His years of waiting were over.