Many NFL fans knew that already, of course: Ware led the league with twenty sacks last year for the Dallas Cowboys (okay, that last part isn’t very awesome). And it’s not his eighty-plus tackles or his six forced fumbles that make him cool, either.
No, what makes DeMarcus Ware awesome is his willingness to go into hiding. Just ask ex-Cowboy Greg Ellis, which is what former Cowboys star Michael Irvin did Wednesday.
‘It's a disgrace when DeMarcus Ware comes off the field just so I can get in the game and when the coaches tell him to come on the field, he tries to hide so I can play,’ Ellis said on Irvin's show. ‘And you're telling me we're trying to win the Super Bowl?’
Seriously?
During the interview Wednesday, Irvin asked Ellis to clarify his statement that Ware would take himself out of games.
‘On his own. He would say, 'G, come on.' And I would tell him, 'No, DeMarcus, go ahead, man. You're coming up on your contract year. Don't mess that stuff up.'’
Ware gave a cagey response on the radio yesterday, which you can find in that ESPN article, but he admits that basically, yeah, he did do that. He gave up some of his own precious playing time for Ellis, who was in his eleventh year with the Cowboys.
That may look like a tiny risk, and it is if you ignore small facts like how many NFL players have statistics-based contract incentives (don’t know about Ware specifically on this) or the one that says most NFL owners are willing to be petty and vindictive in all your future contract negotiations. In a small way, at least, Ware was taking a chance with his career that wasn’t going to benefit him any.
Now wait: shouldn’t Ware do what his coaches say all the time? Well, I’m sure the coaches would like that, but I think it’s awesome that he has the leadership chops to just go ahead and pay respect to a long-tenured veteran like this. (It’s not like Ellis was a liability; he chipped in eight sacks of his own on the year.) Life in the NFL is really, really short, even if you’re star. Some organizations don’t value independent thinking in their rank-and-file, but to me a guy like Ware is worth his weight in gold to a team and its defense. If I were running the Cowboys, I’d do what I could to keep him happy for a long, long time.
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