The best player to wear No. 72 in Dallas Cowboys history is one of those picks that doesn’t require much debate. Once you get past the names on the list, the answer lands where it should: Ed “Too Tall” Jones.
That said, the number has had some strong representation over the years. Travis Frederick is the clear runner-up after a decorated run in Dallas from 2013 to 2019, when he made five Pro Bowls and earned three All-Pro nods - one First Team and two Second Team. He played only six of those seven seasons, though, because he missed the entire 2018 campaign while battling Guillain-Barré syndrome, a condition that led to his retirement in early 2020 at age 29.
But the top spot belongs to Jones, one of the most imposing defensive linemen ever to wear the star. The 6-foot-9 defensive end piled up 106.0 sacks for Dallas and carried a nickname that fit him perfectly.
Jones’ road to football fame started late. His high school in Jackson, Tennessee, didn’t even field a football team until his senior year, so he played only three games of the sport during his prep years. Even so, he was a standout in other places, earning All-American honors in basketball and drawing offers from several Major League Baseball clubs because of his baseball ability.
He chose a basketball scholarship at Tennessee State, but after two years he walked away from the court because he wanted football. At his first practice, the nickname that would follow him everywhere was born. A teammate joked about his pants not fitting because he was “too tall” to play football.
The joke didn’t age well. Jones earned All-American honors in 1972 and 1973, and in that second season Tennessee State finished 10-0 and was recognized as the Black College National Champions. Even coming from a small school, he was viewed as one of the best defensive players in the country, and Dallas made him the No. 1 overall pick in the 1974 NFL Draft, making him the first HBCU player to go that high.
He began his Cowboys career in a reserve role as a rookie, then moved into the starting lineup at left defensive end in 1975. That helped Dallas reach the Super Bowl, though the Steelers beat them.
Jones and the Cowboys were back in the Super Bowl after the 1977 season, and this time they won the Lombardi Trophy. They returned again after the 1978 campaign, only to lose once more to Pittsburgh.
After that defeat, Jones stepped away from the NFL to try boxing. It worked out pretty well: he went 6-0, with five knockouts, before coming back to Dallas in 1980.
His best stretch followed soon after. From 1981 through 1983, Jones made three Pro Bowls and picked up three All-Pro selections, including one First Team and two Second Team honors.
His Dallas career lasted into a very different era, too. Jones’ final season came in 1989, the same year Jerry Jones bought the team and replaced Tom Landry with Jimmy Johnson. With the franchise turning younger, Jones retired a few months before the 1990 season after appearing in 224 regular-season games and 20 postseason games for the Cowboys, starting all but 21 of them.
Because sacks weren’t officially tracked until 1982, the official record book doesn’t fully capture what Jones did. But Pro Football Reference has data going back to 1960, and by that count he finished with 106.0 sacks, which ranks fourth in Cowboys history behind DeMarcus Ware’s 117.0, Harvey Martin’s 114.0, and Randy White’s 111.0.
Not bad for a guy who was supposedly too tall to play football.
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