IRVING, Texas (AP) -Year after year, Cowboys linebacker DeMarcus Ware has lifted his sack totals, from eight as a rookie all the way up to an NFL-best 20 last season.
Now what?
Ware is only the seventh player to reach that plateau since sacks became an official statistic in 1982. None of the others – not Hall of Famers Reggie White, Lawrence Taylor or Derrick Thomas – ever got there again, much less two years in a row.
Ware doesn’t need to talk to any of his predecessors to figure out what went wrong. He knows it wasn’t easy to begin with and, the year after, you’re even more of a marked man.
“Now teams are really cheating over to you,” he said. “They might stick a tight end, might stick a running back over there. It gets harder.”
Of course, he’s still aiming to do it, starting Sunday against Byron Leftwich and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.
harp on. If I don’t get any pressure in the game, I feel like I didn’t play well. I can have 10 tackles, but I’ve just got to smell the quarterback.”
He certainly knows the scent.
Entering his fifth year, Ware’s sack totals have gone from eight to 11 1/2 to 14 to 20. If he takes it up again, he’ll challenge the NFL single-season record of 22 1/2 set by Michael Strahan in 2001.
Ware also is in line to challenge the two-year record of 41 set by Mark Gastineau in 1983-84.
Ware already has put together the best two-year run in 20 years. According to STATS Inc., only Gastineau, White, Andre Tippett and Richard Dent have had consecutive seasons with more than the 34 sacks Ware has had the last two years, and they all did it in the mid-1980s.
Ware’s career tally of 53 1/2 is the most in the NFL since Bill Parcells made Ware the 11th overall pick in the 2005 draft.
“DeMarcus is the real deal,” said Hall of Famer Dick Butkus, whose inaugural Butkus Award for the NFL’s best linebacker went to Ware last year. “When you watch plays on television you really are missing the size and speed. I met him at the award ceremony and he’s a big guy. His speed for his size is incredible.”
to the habit of putting up his hands to bat down passes when he can’t get a sack and getting better at stripping the ball.
His theory: His sack numbers may go down, but his other stats might go up.
“How many takeaways can I get this season? How many tackles?” Ware said. “I always look at tackles. If you’re making tackles, you’re making plays. All those little small things, you’ve got to add all those things up and they become big.”
Still, sacks will always be his main thing, so he’s always trying to find new ways to get them.
Ware’s arsenal revolves around a straight speed rush, a stutter step he calls the “shake and bake” and a basketball-esque crossover.
While coach Wade Phillips urges him to simply refine those, Ware is always tinkering with new moves. In fact, that’s how he came up with the stutter.
“You’ve got to try to find something else just to sort of keep them honest,” he said. “I know what I do best, but what else can I add? You’ve got to add something each year to get better.”
Ware.
Yet another of Ware’s goals is seeing the team total of 59 go up, regardless of how many he contributes.
“I hope they throw a whole bunch of stuff at me because then guys like Jay and Bradie and Spencer will get one-on-one,” Ware said. “They’re going to be really effective. That’s what it’s about. It’s about teamwork. Whatever you can do for the team. …
“But I’m going to find some way to get there,” Ware said, smiling. “Believe that.”
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