Dallas Cowboys’ DeMarcus Ware, Chuck Howley entering Pro Football Hall of Fame

Former Dallas Cowboys defensive end DeMarcus Ware and linebacker Chuck Howley was named to the Pro Football Hall of Fame on Thursday night.

Ware and Howley were among the new members named during the 12th annual NFL Honors show, broadcast live from the Symphony Hall in Phoenix. The pre-Super Bowl show also named the league’s top award winners for the 2022 season.

Ware and Howley will be inducted into the hall in Canton, Ohio, this summer.

Ware played for the Cowboys from 2005-2013 before finishing his final three seasons with the Denver Broncos in 2014-16.

He led the Cowboys in sacks for eight seasons, 2005-2012 and led the NFL with 20 sacks (2008) and 15.5 sacks (2010). He still holds the Cowboys career sacks record with 117. He was voted first-team All-Pro four times (2007-09, 2011); second-team All-Pro three times (2006, 2010, 2012) and selected to nine Pro Bowls (2007-2013, 2015-16). He was named to the NFL’s All-Decade Team of the 2000s.

Ware won Super Bowl 50 with the Broncos and ended his career with 138.5 sacks. Ware played on only one team with a losing record during his career and helped lead his teams to five playoff appearances.

Ware was one of seven first-time eligible players in this year’s class.

Howley was originally drafted by the Chicago Bears. After spending a couple of seasons with the Bears and missing a year recovering from injuries, he joined the Cowboys in 1961 and payed 13 seasons.

He was named the Most Valuable Player of Super Bowl V en though the Cowboys lost. He was also on the Super Bowl winning team the following year.

Howley was named All-Pro five times and is in the Cowboys’ Ring of Honor.

Others named to the Hall of Fame on Thursday included modern day players Ronde Barber, Darrelle Revis, Joe Thomas, Zach Thomas, coach/contributor Don Coryell and senior players Joe Klecko and Ken Riley.

The headliners of the class are Joe Thomas and Revis — the two first-round picks from the 2007 draft who took far different journeys to this ultimate honor.

Revis bounced around teams seeking his best opportunities to win and thrive financially, while Thomas never moved.

Picked third in the draft by Cleveland, Thomas stepped in as an immediate starter and never moved until a torn triceps ended his final season in 2017.

Thomas played 10,363 consecutive snaps before that injury as one of the only dependable parts on one of the NFL’s sorriest franchises.

“The one theme that has been, probably, the thing I hold most closely to my heart when people ask about ‘What are you most proud of during your career,’ it’s that snap streak because of what it represents to me,” Thomas said. “‘Count on me.’ That was always the motto I had in my head. It was ‘Count on me.’ When times get tough, and you want to know who to look at, count on me.”

Thomas was a Pro Bowler in all 10 healthy seasons, a first-team All-Pro six times and a second-team selection two other years.

But he never even made it to the playoffs a single time with the Browns, with the team’s .287 winning percentage when he played the fifth-worst mark among the 1,353 players who played at least 150 games in the Super Bowl era.

Revis was always moving, whether it was following top receivers from one side of the field to the other as the game’s top lockdown cornerback of his era.

Revis’ best stretch came in New York with the Jets, where he was a first-team All-Pro from 2009-11 and finished second in Defensive Player of the Year voting in 2009 when he repeatedly shut down top receivers by sending them to “Revis Island.”

Revis spent one year in New England, helping the Patriots win the Super Bowl in the 2014 season, and also played for Tampa Bay and Kansas City, along with a second stint with the Jets. Revis earned more than $124 million in his career — the most ever for a cornerback — as he was as skilled at maximizing his value as he was at covering receivers.

Ware, Barber and Zach Thomas all had longer waits before getting voted into the Hall. Ware was also a finalist last year, while Barber got in on his third time at this stage and Thomas on his fourth try.

An Associated Press story was used to supplement this Star-Telegram story.