Future Cowboys Ring of Honor member DeMarcus Omar Ware, re-signed with America’s Team, The Dallas Cowboys, and as a result, will retire as a member of the team, the Dallas Cowboys announced Monday.
DeMarcus will be placed on the NFL’s reserved/retired list after 13 seasons, the last three with the Broncos, who DeMarcus helped lead to a Super Bowl 50 victory after the 2015 season.
DeMarcus Omar Ware Ware became an “NFL BEST”EDGE RUSHING PHENOM, and also proved to be a Monster at stopping the run while playing in 134 consecutive games in the 2013 season, his last with the Cowboys.
DeMarcus Omar Ware (born July 31, 1982) is a former American football outside linebacker and defensive end. He played college football at Troy and was drafted by the Dallas Cowboys with the 11th pick in the first round of the 2005 NFL Draft. After spending eleven seasons with the Cowboys, Ware departed in 2015 as the franchise’s all-time leader in quarterback sacks with 116. Ware also played for the Denver Broncos, with whom he won Super Bowl 50 with a win over the Carolina Panthers. After the 2016 season with the Broncos, he retired from the NFL.
Ware is tied for the record of most seasons leading the league in sacks with two (2008 and 2010). Ware is tied with Mark Gastineau, 1983–84; Reggie White, 1987–88; Kevin Greene, 1994, 1996; Michael Strahan, 2001, 2003 and Jared Allen, 2007, 2011.
As of the end of the 2012 season, Ware has recorded 10+ sacks in 7 straight seasons. Only 2 other players in NFL history have more consecutive seasons with 10+ sacks: Reggie White (9), John Randle (8)
Ware is the second fastest player ever to reach 100+ sacks (Reggie White is the fastest) and the 29th player in history to do so.
Ware recorded 28 multiple-sack games and 32 forced fumbles as a member of the Dallas Cowboys, both most in club history.
Ware has ranked in the top three in total sacks league-wide in 4 out of 5 seasons (3rd place in 2007, 1st place in 2008, 7th place in 2009, 1st place in 2010, and 2nd place in 2011).
On April 19, 2016, the governor of Alabama declared April 19 “DeMarcus Ware Day” in his honor.
Cowboys franchise records
- All-time leader in sacks: 117
- All-time leader in fumbles forced: 32
The Dallas Cowboys, in need of a playmaker on defense, drafted defensive end DeMarcus Ware with the 11th overall pick in the 2005 NFL Draft. Eight seasons and 108.5 sacks later, DeMarcus is one of the most dominating defensive players in the National Football League.
DeMarcus isn’t overly large for the NFL — only 6-foot-4, 254 pounds. Rather it’s the 29-year-old’s speed, agility, quickness, his “motor” that has led him to six straight Pro Bowls.
Since the sack became an official statistic in 1982, DeMarcus has six consecutive 10-sack seasons and earned a career- and NFL-best 20 sacks in 2008. Last season, he had 19.5 sacks, only a half a sack away from becoming the only player in NFL history to have two separate 20-sack seasons. He has a franchise record 25 multi-sack games, and quite possibly this season he’ll become the Cowboys’ all-time leader.
A FOOTBALL PLAYER IS BORN
DeMarcus didn’t even set foot on the field until his junior year at Auburn (Ala.) High School. He had already been a standout in baseball, basketball and track, and his athletic frame fit right in with the Tigers on the football field. As a senior, he totaled 55 tackles with seven sacks and also picked up team MVP honors as a linebacker/receiver.
College came calling in 2001 — an option DeMarcus at one point never dreamed possible. His family struggled to make ends meet in eastern Alabama, and despite starring in high school just down Samford Avenue big-time Southeastern Conference powerhouse Auburn University never offered DeMarcus a scholarship. No schools did except for Troy University, about an hour’s drive south.
DeMarcus’ friend and high school teammate Osi Umenyiora had moved on to play at Troy and recommended DeMarcus to the coaching staff there, but DeMarcus mostly saw the offer as a chance for four free years of higher education. “I really wasn’t thinking much about football,” he said. “Just making sure I was good enough to stay on the team, to keep the education going.”
He was plenty good from the start. Umenyiora recalled DeMarcus’ first play in a 2001 game against in-state rival Alabama-Birmingham. “The guy who was starting in front of him got hurt,” Umenyiora said. “They put him in on the very first play, and he ran 50 yards to chase somebody down from the other side of the football field. I was like, ‘Jesus!’ That’s when I knew he was going to be something.”
DeMarcus went on to earn All-Sun Belt Conference honors in his final two seasons, adding a league Defensive Player of the Year award while being named a finalist for the Hendricks Award as the nation’s top defensive end as a senior. He led Troy to its first bowl appearance in 2004 and left with a degree in business information systems, becoming the first member of his family to graduate from college.
“DeMarcus … he was about 6-4, 196 when he got here,” Troy coach Larry Blakeney said. “When he left my office to go to Dallas he was 6-5, 255. And he could really run. I don’t think he ever lost a challenge race here. All those corners and wide receivers who thought they were fast, he normally dusted them.”
LONE STAR SACKER
At draft time, then-Cowboys head coach Bill Parcells, implementing a 3-4 defense, held hybrid defensive end/outside linebackers in high regard. With an impressive NFL Scouting Combine — most notably a vertical lap of 38.5 inches — DeMarcus was taken 11th overall by the Cowboys in the 2005 NFL Draft.
DeMarcus flourished in the system and racked up eight sacks his rookie season. He finally got Parcells’ approval when he recorded his first sack in a Week 3 win over San Francisco. After the play, Parcells made eye contact, nodded, and as DeMarcus said, “that’s all it took.”
His breakout season came in 2006, as “B-Ware D-Ware” became a catchphrase for Cowboys fans. He reached his first Pro Bowl with 11.5 sacks, five forced fumbles and two defensive touchdowns. Then came another 14 sacks in 2007 and a career- and NFL-best 20 in 2008. That year, he had a career-high 110 tackles — his first 100-tackle season — while also leading the team in tackles for losses (eight) and forced fumbles (six).
And the sacks kept, and continue to keep, on coming. From 2009-11, DeMarcus earned another 46 sacks.
OUTSIDE THE LINES
DeMarcus has two children — 4-year-old daughter Marley and 1-year-old DeMarcus Jr. — and kids are near and dear to his heart.
He’s involved in numerous youth-driven charities and organizations in the Dallas-Fort Worth area. He’s also the first NFL player to win the Butkus Award, which is given to the athletes that are committed to playing steroid free. So DeMarcus knows the importance of helping kids make good choices in life, as he and fellow NFL player Reggie Bush delivered encouraging messages to high school football participants at the Red Bull 7-on-7 Game Breakers Finals in Dallas in July 2011. He later signed to represent Red Bull last October.
DeMarcus is quite the outdoorsman, too, going all the way back to his days in Alabama. Before he began hunting quarterbacks, he’d hunt “small rodents, rabbits and squirrels and little bit of deer here and there. Whatever you can find.” Then he moved to Texas.
“I see like these big 14-, 15-point bucks that are 180 pounds, these big wild boar, 450 pounds,” he said. “It’s just ridiculous how big the animals are down here.”
