The name of NFL Hall of Famer and longtime Dallas Cowboys great DeMarcus Ware will be added to the team’s Ring of Honor inside AT&T Stadium on Sunday.
The ceremony unveiling Ware’s name among 22 other Cowboys legends will take place at halftime. Ware will be inducted by Jerry Jones and will be greeted by other Ring of Honor members present for the ceremony.
Ware will be the 20th player but just the sixth drafted by Jones during his 34-year run as owner. The last player to be inducted was Darren Woodson in 2015. Former team executive and Vice President of Player Personnel Gil Brandt was added in 2018.
Ware was a four-time All-Pro and led the Cowboys in sacks for eight seasons, is the team’s all-time leader in sacks and topped the NFL with 20 sacks in 2008 and 15 1/2 in 2010. He finished with 138 1/2 sacks and made the NFL’s All-Decade Team of the 2000s.
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Drafted by the Cowboys in 2005, Ware was the 11th pick in the first round. He spent nine years with the Cowboys before being released as a free agent by Dallas after the 2013 season. He played three more years in Denver, where he won a Super Bowl in 2015, before signing a one-day contract before retiring with Dallas in 2017.
Following his retirement, the team said “Ware returned to North Texas and remains a champion in the Dallas-Fort Worth community, actively supporting numerous charitable organizations and community programs year-round. He is also an active member of the Dallas Cowboys Alumni Association.”
The Ring of Honor induction isn’t the only honor bestowed on Ware this season. He was enshrined into the NFL Hall of Fame in August and on Nov. 30 he and fellow Hall of Fame member Chuck Howley will be given their HOF rings during a halftime ceremony at AT&T Stadium.
The team hasn’t announced any other inductions into the Ring of Honor for this season. Jones has said in recent years he’d add former coach Jimmy Johnson, with whom he won two Super Bowls in the 1990s. But so far, Jones hasn’t announced any plans on when that ceremony will take place. Jones reaffirmed to NBC 5’s Newy Scruggs in August 2022 that Johnson would be put in the team’s Ring of Honor, but said it just wasn’t the right circumstances yet.
COWBOYS RING OF HONOR MEMBERS (YEAR ENSHRINED)
Bob Lilly (1975)*
Don Meredith (1976)
Don Perkins (1976)
Chuck Howley (1977)*
Mel Renfro (1981)*
Roger Staubach (1983)*
Lee Roy Jordan (1989)
Tom Landry (1993)*
Tony Dorsett (1994)*
Randy White (1994)*
Bob Hayes (2001)*
Tex Schramm (2003)*
Cliff Harris (2004)*
Rayfield Wright (2004)*
Emmitt Smith (2005)*
Troy Aikman (2005)*
Michael Irvin (2005)*
Larry Allen (2011)*
Drew Pearson (2011)*
Charles Haley (2011)*
Darren Woodson (2015)
Gil Brandt (2018)*
DeMarcus Ware (2023)*
*Indicates they are a member of the Pro Football Hall of Fame
