Welcome back to The Landry Hat’s run through the best Dallas Cowboys players to wear every jersey number from No. 0 to No. 99.
At No. 39, the list is thin. Really thin. There just haven’t been many Cowboys players to make much of a mark in that number, which leaves the choice fairly clear once you sort through the names.
The group includes Brandon Carr, Tyler Coyle, Derrick Gainer, E.J. Jones, Ryan Neufeld, Lousaka Polite, Xavier Rhodes, Broderick Sargent and Donald Smith.
Rhodes brings the biggest resume on paper, with three Pro Bowls and a First-Team All-Pro nod, but all of that came with the Minnesota Vikings. His Cowboys stint was only one game, and that came in the 2022 playoffs, so he’s not the pick here.
That leaves Brandon Carr as the obvious answer, and his Dallas run was plenty good enough to win the spot. Still, when people think about Carr, one play tends to jump straight to mind - and it was not one he made.
Carr came to the NFL as a fifth-round pick out of Division II Grand Valley State, where he was a two-time First-Team All-GLIAC selection and a two-time All-American. The Kansas City Chiefs drafted him No. 140 overall in 2008, and he spent four seasons there, starting all 65 games he appeared in, including one postseason game, before joining the Cowboys as an unrestricted free agent before the 2012 season.
Dallas signed him to replace Terence Newman, who had been released for salary cap reasons, and Carr delivered right away. In his first season with the Cowboys, he led the team with 10 passes defended and three interceptions. He also returned a Nick Foles pass for his first career pick-six in a Week 10 win over the rival Philadelphia Eagles.
He added another pick-six the next year against Eli Manning in the 2013 season opener against the New York Giants. But it was the Giants again, in Week 12 of the 2014 season, that gave Carr the moment most fans still associate with him.
On Sunday Night Football, with Dallas trailing 7-3, the Cowboys were in New York for a rivalry game when Carr lined up against rookie Odell Beckham Jr., who had already scored on a 3-yard touchdown. On the first play of the second quarter, Manning launched a pass from midfield toward the goal line, Carr dragged Beckham down as the ball arrived, drawing a flag, and Beckham reached back over his head for what became arguably the greatest one-handed catch in NFL history before landing in the end zone.
Yeah, you know the one.
Dallas still rallied from an 11-point deficit to win 31-28, but the game’s defining image belonged to Beckham’s catch, not the comeback. Carr’s career in Dallas deserved better than that single snapshot, because he was a steady corner for the Cowboys.
After leaving following the 2016 season, Carr spent three years with the Baltimore Ravens and then returned to Dallas in 2020 for one last stint. That comeback lasted only three games, and those were the only three games in his 13-year career that he didn’t start.
Across 83 regular-season games with the Cowboys, Carr finished with 316 total tackles, six tackles for loss, one sack, 44 passes defended and seven interceptions, which makes him the clear choice as the best player in franchise history to wear No. 39.
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Za'Darius Smith fits that profile as a veteran who can affect both the quarterback and the run game, which is part of why he has stayed on the radar. He has also been working out with the Cleveland Browns, a sign that he remains in the mix elsewhere, and the Cowboys are still in the stage of weighing whether the fit makes sense without any move feeling close to done. [Read more 🡒]