The second stop in this Cowboys jersey-number series lands on No. 1, and unlike No. 0, this one comes with a real debate. A handful of players have worn it in Dallas, but the field narrows quickly once you start sorting through the names.
The list includes Kerry Brady, Efren Herrera, Kelvin Joseph, Jayron Kearse, P.J. Locke, Mat McBriar, Hunter Niswander, Rafael Septien, Jalen Tolbert, Ken Willis and Cedrick Wilson Jr. From there, the medals shake out pretty cleanly.
Efren Herrera would take bronze. He was the second Mexican-born player drafted into the NFL and spent four of his nine league seasons with the Cowboys from 1974 to 1977. His final season in Dallas brought First-Team All-Pro honors, and it helped the Cowboys win their second Super Bowl.
Rafael Septien gets silver. He arrived in 1978, in his second NFL season, to replace Herrera and stayed until he was released in January 1987 after pleading guilty to a charge we will not get into here. By the time he left, the one-time All-Pro was the franchise’s scoring leader, and his 874 points still rank second in team history behind Emmitt Smith’s 986.
But the top spot belongs to Mat McBriar, and it’s not much of a fight. He’s one of the best punters the Cowboys have ever had.
McBriar was a two-time All-WAC selection at the University of Hawai'i, then went undrafted in 2003 before the Denver Broncos signed him. Denver traded him to the Seattle Seahawks during the preseason, and Seattle cut him before the regular season even began.
Dallas brought him onto the practice squad late in that 2003 season, and he won the starting job in 2004. He kept it through the 2011 season.
Across eight full years in Dallas, McBriar lived near the top of the league in punt average. Twice he led the NFL in that category, averaging 48.2 yards in 2006 and 47.9 in 2010. Both of those seasons ended with a Pro Bowl nod and a Second-Team All-Pro selection.
That 2006 season also featured a 75-yard punt in a Week 5 win over the Houston Texans. At the time, it was tied for the second-longest punt in Cowboys history, trailing only Ron Widby’s 84-yarder from 1968. Bryan Anger later pushed into second place with an 83-yard punt in 2022, but McBriar still shares third with Billy Lothridge.
The numbers back up the case, too. McBriar owns four of the 10 best single-season punting averages in franchise history, while five belong to Anger and one belongs to Hunter Niswander, another No. 1 wearer. He also ranks fourth in Cowboys history with 18,954 punt net yards, according to Pro Football Reference.
After leaving Dallas, McBriar finished his career with brief stops with the Philadelphia Eagles, the Pittsburgh Steelers and the then-San Diego Chargers.
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