The Cowboys are eight-deep in the recent list of nominees for next year’s Hall enshrinement ceremony. We review the careers of each. | From @KDDrummondNFL, @ToddBrock24f7
Not every player who enters the NFL has a chance to win a championship. As one of just 53 players on a roster, close to 70 if counting practice squads and 80 if counting IR, a single individual cannot change the fortunes of an entire franchise. One man can only control his own contributions, and in that vein, earning induction into the Pro Football Hall of Fame is the lifetime achievement every player strives for.
The Dallas Cowboys, winner of five Super Bowls, have had their fair share of both champions and Hall of Famers. After the most recent enshrinement, that total has climbed to 22 (the club claims). Will they get any more in the near future? On Tuesday, the Hall announced this year’s class of nominees, all 173 of them. Dallas has their fair share, with seven names on the list. With no first timers, the odds are unlikely any get in, but that doesn’t mean they are any less deserving of consideration.
Here’s a look at who the seven are and where they rank on the club’s Top 100.
Always-colorful Nate Newton won 3 Super Bowls and earned 6 Pro Bowl nods as an anchoring member of “The Great Wall of Dallas” in the 1990s. | From @ToddBrock24f7
Over 13 seasons wearing the star, Nate Newton was an anchoring member of one the most dominant offensive lines in NFL history, “The Great Wall of Dallas.” And he ended up the most decorated one of the bunch. He played on three Super Bowl-winning teams during the franchise’s greatest run. He earned a trip to six Pro Bowls. He was named a first-team All-Pro twice.
Nate Newton did it all as a Cowboy. But he was granted football immortality for what he did as a Rattler.
The 60-year-old Newton, who last played pro ball in 1999, was inducted into the Black College Football Hall of Fame this past weekend in Atlanta. Several Cowboys teammates- including Troy Aikman, Deion Sanders, Daryl Johnston, Tony Tolbert, and Mark Stepnoski- were on hand to celebrate with him.
— Pro Football Hall of Fame (@ProFootballHOF) June 18, 2022
“I’m humbled. I’m humbled. This is something special,” Newton said, per Clarence Hill of the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. “What makes me feel good is my teammates were there, my sons, my brother and sister. It was Father’s Day. There was a Juneteenth parade across the street. I had everybody that was somebody to me there. What more can I ask for? How much better could this weekend have been? All I needed was Jesus to come in and resurrect this thing and take us out of here.”
Even on squads that were loaded with larger-than-life personalities, Newton was always among the biggest, in every sense of the word.
Playing at anywhere from 325 to nearly 370 pounds, Newton was nicknamed “The Kitchen” because he was even larger than William “The Refrigerator” Perry of the Chicago Bears.
The team tried to slim him down. Then-Cowboys owner Tex Schramm famously offered Newton an $80,000 bonus if he simply arrived to camp weighing under 310.
“If someone offers you $80,000 to be unhappy, you shouldn’t take it,” Newton would say. “So [expletive] $80,000; I’d rather eat.”
Coming out of Florida A&M, Newton was selected by the Tampa Bay Bandits in the 1983 USFL Territorial Draft but chose to sign instead with Washington in the NFL as an undrafted free agent. He was waived during training camp.
He returned to the Bandits and played two seasons in the USFL. After that league folded, he signed with the Cowboys as a free agent in 1986. He played 37 games under head coach Tom Landry before Jerry Jones bought the franchise in 1989.
Under new coach Jimmy Johnson, Newton saw a position change- from left guard to right tackle- after the nearly-50-year-old coach beat Newton in a foot race. By 1992, though, he was back at left guard. The offensive line that also included Stepnoski, John Gesek, Erik Williams, and Mark Tuinei helped running back Emmitt Smith win a rushing title and led the Cowboys to a 13-3 regular season record.
Dallas went on to throttle Buffalo 52-17 in Super Bowl XXVII to cap off the season.
“It is unbelievable,” Newton said that night in Pasadena. “I am so filled with joy, I can’t even express it. If I could explode, I would. But I can’t, because my insurance ain’t paid up.”
Good thing, too. Newton would play in his first Pro Bowl a week later.
It was the first of five consecutive Pro Bowl berths for Newton, who had become a genuine celebrity in his own right. This is, after all, the player who John Madden once accused of polishing off a Snickers bar on the field in the middle of a live play.
“I was like, ‘Did a damn candy bar just fly from Nate’s body or am I imagining things?'”defensive back Larry Brown recalled.
Stepnoski remembers training camp fast-food runs made on Newton’s behalf.
“Whoever was hungry would take some pieces,” Stepnoski added. “Then Nate would eat the last fifteen or twenty pieces himself.”
Gesek would say later, “Quite frankly, the reason I think Nate went to six Pro Bowls was because his weight was such a joke it got him attention.”
15 Sep 1996: Offensive lineman Nate Newton of the Dallas Cowboys celebrates during a game against the Indianapolis Colts at Texas Stadium in Irving,Texas. The Colts won the game, 25-24. Mandatory Credit: Brian Bahr /Allsport
But Newton was so much more than a punch line. The only Cowboys offensive linemen with more Pro Bowls to their credit are Hall of Famer Larry Allen (10), Tyron Smith (8), and Zack Martin (7). Newton’s six ties him with John Niland and Hall of Famer Rayfield Wright.
“I don’t see myself as some great player,” Newton said last weekend. “I see myself as a good guy and someone you can depend on. Things just keep happening for the good.”
After 13 seasons with the Cowboys, Newton went on to a backup role in Carolina, but his playing career ended with a torn triceps tendon in just his seventh game with the Panthers.
Newton got into some trouble after leaving football, getting arrested twice with large quantities of marijuana in his possession and serving 30 months in federal prison for drug trafficking as a result.
Since then, though, he has become a motivational speaker for student-athletes around the country. He has continued to be a part of the Cowboys’ extended family, working for the team’s media department and website, as well as doing appearances at alumni events.
And now his football life has taken him to the Black College Football Hall of of Fame, alongside HBCU legends such as Walter Payton, Jerry Rice, and Doug Williams. Fellow Cowboys Bob Hayes, Thomas “Hollywood” Henderson, Ed “Too Tall” Jones, Timmy Newsome, Jethro Pugh, Everson Walls, Rayfield Wright, and Erik Williams are there, too.
“I’m living life,” Newton summed up afterward. “I am a Dallas Cowboy. That is where it began and ended for me.”
The Cowboys’ new defensive tackle is walking the walk on Juneteenth and asking new boss Jerry Jones to finally talk the talk.
Gerald McCoy is already showing himself to be a leader for the 2020 Dallas Cowboys, even though he has yet to set foot in the building. The six-time Pro Bowl defensive tackle, signed by the club in late March, is lending his voice to growing calls to make Juneteenth a national holiday. He called on his new Cowboys teammates to join him in a 2.5-mile walk on Friday, a show of solidarity with Opal Lee, the 92-year-old retired teacher who walked from her Fort Worth home all the way to the nation’s capital (two and a half miles at a time, in 2016 and again in 2019) in an attempt to get the date recognized officially.
But McCoy also had some words for his new boss, Cowboys team owner Jerry Jones, who has yet to weigh in publicly with a stance on the events that have gripped the country since the May 25 death of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis police.
Appearing on ESPN’s First Take on Friday to mark the occasion of Juneteenth, McCoy was asked about the deafening silence that has come from the owner of America’s Team.
“When you have a franchise as recognizable as the Cowboys, “McCoy said, “people listen when they speak up. And the owner, Jerry Jones- who is one of the most recognizable figures in sports history- when he speaks, everybody listens. Well, I think at this point in time, I feel it would be great to hear him say something positive, or say anything. I love what he’s been to the sport. He’s been excellent to the sport of football. He’s a Hall of Famer. But at this point, it’s bigger than football. We need him to speak up about life. This is about human beings and equal rights. And that’s not what’s happening. And it would be great to hear him say something. Anything.”
"When things are not going well for the team, you can hear him screaming. Well, this is life. This is bigger than just football; it’s bigger than money; it’s bigger than winning a Super Bowl. And something needs to be said."
Jones has taken considerable heat for his uncharacteristic radio silence. Former Cowboys receiver Dez Bryant tweeted that he’d like to have seen Jones attend one of the many protests that followed Floyd’s death. 49ers cornerback Richard Sherman called out Jones as well, in comments to a San Francisco newspaper.
This week, First Take cohost Stephen A. Smith offered a scathing rant directed at Jones. The team made a mention of Juneteenth via their social media accounts and spotlighted former defensive end Greg Ellis’s theatrical production, “Juneteenth: The Stage Play.” But for Smith, a rabid Cowboys hater, it’s not the same as a formal statement from the man at the top.
I cannot express my disappointment ENOUGH with @Cowboys owner Jerry Jones. And I mean it when I say: i am not going away on this: pic.twitter.com/ZAFBKbwpVW
“Even more disappointing” than Jones’s silence, Smith said, “is that I haven’t heard one single Dallas Cowboy call for Jerry Jones to speak on this issue. Where the hell are they?”
McCoy’s pointed comments 24 hours later may have come too late and too softly for Smith’s liking. But they were not, in fact, the only ones to have come from a Cowboys notable.
Running back Ezekiel Elliott was one of the players featured in the video directed at NFL commissioner Roger Goodell two weeks ago, prompting the commissioner to release a video response of his own condemning racism and admitting the league was wrong to not listen to players’ previous criticisms regarding the issue of race.
Several Cowboys, including Prescott, wide receiver Amari Cooper, Ring of Honor legend Emmitt Smith, former Cowboys defensive star DeMarcus Ware, and three-time Super Bowl offensive lineman Nate Newton were among the hundreds of sports notables who signed a letter supporting the end of qualified immunity for violent police officers.
Speaking with Rich Eisen, Hall of Fame wide receiver Michael Irvin shared personal stories of his own experiences with systemic racism and described it as a problem that “we have to root out.”
The Cowboys organization released a video, the first in a promised series, that, according the team website, “reflects the organization’s statement regarding the recent tragedies in our country while also disclosing interactions between the team, its players, and community leaders.”
And most recently, defensive end DeMarcus Lawrence pledged to join McCoy for local Opal’s Walk events on Friday and Saturday. The two and a half miles of the walk represent the two and a half years that Black Texans waited between the Emancipation Proclamation, which abolished slavery, and the day that message finally arrived in Galveston.
I had the pleasure of sitting & hearing all that Ms. Opal has been doing to bring awareness to #juneteenth ! She’s challenged me & now I challenge ALL OF YOU! DO the research & learn about her & how to get involved! pic.twitter.com/ydPGcmBRnI
McCoy, who still has not met most of his new teammates or coaches face to face, clearly grasps the club’s unique place in the landscape of professional sports. His conversation with the First Take crew echoes remarks he made to ESPN that show his apparent willingness to use his newly-elevated profile to address the current climate alongside the Cowboys veterans who have already done so.
“You have the players, who have their own brand, but we’re all under the umbrella of the Dallas Cowboys,” McCoy said, per Todd Archer. “The Dallas Cowboys are the most recognized franchise in the world. They can get behind it, whether it’s the players or just being in the movement, period, and showing their support. It would be great to hear a statement from the Cowboys, great to hear a statement from Jerry Jones in support of everything that’s going on. Will that get me in trouble saying that? I don’t know, but the truth is it needs to be said. The problem is people are afraid to have the conversations.”
Gerald McCoy is talking the talk on racial inequality in America. And on Juneteenth, he’s also walking the walk.
Let’s go everybody!! It’s time to make Juneteenth a national holiday. Show your support by walking 2.5 miles this Friday, wherever you are, to support Opal Lee’s efforts that began with her walking from Texas to… https://t.co/YBtd2kWh4o
