There are officially 97 days until the toe meets the ball at AT&T Stadium where the Dallas Cowboys will host the New York Giants on NBC’s Sunday Night Football.
This is the third Cowboy to be revealed on Inside The Star’s series counting down the Greatest Cowboy to wear each jersey number. 97 is a fantastic number, and there have been some impressive ones to lace it up in the blue and silver.
The following players have all worn 97 for the Dallas Cowboys:
- Aaron Fields, DE
- La’Roi Glover, DT
- Jason Hatcher, DE
- Jimmie Jones, DE
- Kevin Lilly, DT
- Terrell McClain*, DT
- Kavika Pittman, DE
- David Ponder, DT
*Active player on the Dallas Cowboys roster
97 is a bit of a closer race than 99 or 98 (Chris Canty and Greg Ellis, respectively). La’Roi Glover, Jason Hatcher, and Jimmie Jones all have at least 120 tackles in their history with the number. While Jason Hatcher actually has the most tackles as 97, he is only slightly ahead of Jones and Glover and played twice as long for Dallas as they did. This leaves Jones and Glover to duke it out, and while a DT named Lilly will make this list at some point it’s not going to be Kevin.
Jimmie Jones is someone that old school Cowboys hold near and dear to their hearts. He was on the 1992 and 1993 World Champion Dallas Cowboys teams and was a part of the fleet of pass rushers that Dave Wannstedt and Butch Davis put together.
However, La’Roi Glover was one of the more dominating presences on the early 2000s Cowboys defenses with Dexter Coakley and Dat Nguyen.
La’Roi Glover does in fact take the crown of Greatest 97 in Dallas Cowboys History as in the same amount of time as Jones he put together almost identical tackles (124 to Jones’ 140), but forced 5 fumbles to Jones’ 0. He also is the ONLY 97 to ever record a safety as a Dallas Cowboy.
Check back tomorrow to find out who the Greatest 96 in Dallas Cowboys History is!
