The Dallas Cowboys’ No. 94 has a pretty short roll call, but the name at the top is as big as it gets. When you sort through everyone who’s worn it, the answer lands on DeMarcus Ware, the franchise’s all-time sack leader and a Hall of Famer whose production still stands out in a long line of pass rushers.
There are only a handful of players to have worn No. 94 for Dallas: Chris Cooper, Kelvin Gilliam, Randy Gregory, Charles Haley, Marshawn Kneeland, Michael Myers, Randy Shannon, DeMarcus Ware and Randy Watts. Marshawn Kneeland is impossible to overlook on that list, having played 18 games over two seasons in the number before tragically passing away in November 2025 at the age of 24.
Charles Haley also belongs in the conversation by merit of his own Hall of Fame career. He won two Super Bowls with the San Francisco 49ers in the late 1980s, then added three more with the Cowboys in the 1990s. In five seasons with Dallas, Haley made two Pro Bowls and earned one First-Team All-Pro nod while posting 34.0 sacks in 63 regular-season games and 3.5 more in nine postseason appearances.
Still, Ware is the easy pick. A First-Team All-Sun Belt selection and the Sun Belt Defensive Player of the Year in 2004 at Troy, he was chosen by Dallas in the first round of the 2005 NFL Draft with the 11th overall pick.
There was some draft-day maneuvering behind the selection. Bill Parcells wanted LSU defensive end Marcus Spears, but Jerry Jones pushed for Ware because he feared Ware would be gone before Dallas picked again at No. 20, a selection the Cowboys had acquired from the Buffalo Bills.
Dallas got both players, with Spears still available at No. 20.
Ware was a defensive end in college, but the Cowboys moved him to outside linebacker during training camp. That decision put him in some rare company right away: he became just the third linebacker in team history to start a season opener as a rookie, joining Lee Roy Jordan and Robert Jones. He also tied Greg Ellis with 8.0 sacks, making him only the second player in franchise history to lead or share the team lead in sacks as a rookie, joining Jimmie Jones.
From there, the numbers kept climbing. Over his next seven seasons, Ware made seven Pro Bowls and collected seven All-Pro honors - four First Team and three Second Team - while piling up 103.0 sacks. That stretch included a franchise-record-tying 20.0 sacks in 2008, good for second in Defensive Player of the Year voting, and 19.5 more in 2011.
He added 6.0 sacks in 2013 to bring his Cowboys total to 117.0, moving past Harvey Martin’s 114.0 for the top spot in team history. That was his final season in Dallas. The Cowboys released him in March 2014, and he later signed with the Denver Broncos, where he played three seasons and won a Super Bowl.
Ware was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 2023, and a few months after getting his bust in Canton, he was also inducted into the Cowboys Ring of Honor.
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Anthony Spencer Had A Cowboys Career Fans Still Wonder About
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Spencers story still carries the what-if feeling that follows so many promising Cowboys careers. He reached the Pro Bowl in 2012 and flashed the kind of production that suggested even more could have been ahead, but the injuries that followed changed the arc of what had been a steady ascent. For a player associated with both impact and unfinished business, No. 93 has stayed memorable in Dallas in a way that goes beyond the numbers. [Read more 🡒]