IRVING, Texas — All last week, teammates wanted to know whether Dallas Cowboys outside linebacker De-Marcus Ware would be able to play against the New Orleans Saints.
They didn’t want to push him. Not after seeing him immobilized on a stretcher, his face mask pried off, as he was taken to a hospital with a neck injury.
But he seemed to be recovering. And the Cowboys sure needed him to help slow down quarterback Drew Brees and the Saints offense.
The answer came in the locker room a few hours before kickoff, when Ware started pulling on his pads and his No. 94 jersey.
“They looked at me like, ‘Are you going to play?’ ” he said Wednesday. “I said, ‘Yeah, I’m going to play. I’m out here for you guys.’ ”
Ware didn’t just play. He dominated.
Despite having his snaps limited, Ware sacked Brees twice, forcing a fumble each time. The first sack-fumble led to a Dallas field goal just before halftime. The second came when the Saints were moving toward a tying touchdown in the final minute, sealing a victory that reshaped the Cowboys’ playoff chances and ended the Saints’ bid for perfection.
All things considered - the quick recovery, the key plays, the ramifications that are already big and could become huge - it makes sense the league named him the NFC defensive player of the week, and that Ware called it “my greatest performance.”
“It’s just a big blessing for me,” he said.
The whole thing is, really.
Two games ago, Ware went full speed into the leg of a San Diego Chargers offensive lineman, the crown of Ware’s helmet ramming into the opponent as if he’d hit a brick wall. He never lost consciousness or feeling, but nobody was taking any chances. His wife left her field-level luxury suite and rode with him in the ambulance to the hospital.
Ware spent the night at home. About 4 a.m., the neck brace he was wearing bothered him more than the injury itself, so he took it off.
The next day, he felt “no pain, no nothing.” It was as if the injury never happened.
“I actually passed the tests the next day, like all the little stretching and pushing your neck,” he said. “They were like, ‘You’re cleared to play this week. It’s upon you.’ ... It was weird.”
The Cowboys still held him out of practice and insisted on other treatments “just to make sure,” he said, “because you can never be too cautious.”
As good as he felt, he wasn’t ready to commit to playing. When teammates asked what he was going to do, Ware kept answering “I don’t know” because he didn’t.
Rookie Victor Butler prepared to take his place. Even after Ware decided to play, Dallas went with Butler on most first and second downs, limiting Ware to third downs and other obvious passing situations.
“When he got in there he said he was feeling all right and got better and better as we went along,” Coach Wade Phillips said. “It was a confidence thing with him. And he passed with flying colors.”
Ware was in for about 10 snaps in the first half, then 25 in the second half. He also recorded two quarterback hurries and two tackles as the Cowboys (9-5) ended a two game losing streak and put themselves back in position to win the NFC East.
Dallas will win the division by winning its last two games - at the Washington Redskins on Sunday night, then at home against the Philadelphia Eagles. A loss to the Saints would’ve left the Cowboys in a three game skid and fighting the Giants and Green Bay Packers for a wild-card spot - and not holding tiebreakers over either team.
Ware long ago established himself as one of the league’s premier defensive players, so in that sense it’s not a surprise that he played great in an important game. But that removes the injury factor.
By all accounts, the injury was more scary than damaging. He never would’ve been cleared to play otherwise, especially considering two months ago the Cowboys wrote him a check for $20 million as part of a $78 million, six-year contract extension. They weren’t going to jeopardize that investment, no matter how important this game was.
Still, coming back wasn’t all about being healed physically. Ware had to be ready to hit and be hit again.
“What bothered me was going out on a stretcher, then going out and playing in a game,” he said. “I’m over that now, so I’m good.”
Very good, actually. And very proud of the message he sent.
“If you go through the right procedures and get treated well, you can go back out and you can still play,” he said. “It’s always going to be a mental battle, maybe the first week or whatever, knowing that ‘Hey, it could happen again,’ but you’ve got to go out there and play and get it out of your mind.”
Sports, Pages 15 on 12/24/2009