For 13 years, from the time he was drafted in the sixth round out of Mississippi State through his retirement after the 1981, DD Lewis epitomized the dreaded Dallas “Doomsday Defense” as a weakside linebacker who could do a bit of everything. And he did, through five Super Bowl appearances. Lewis most famously summed up the status of the Cowboys through that era–and beyond–when he said (though he did not take credit for it) of Texas Stadium’s roof, “The hole is so God can watch His favorite team play.”
Lewis died on Wednesday, September 17, at age 79.
Lewis’ career in Dallas did not get off to a star-studded start. He played off the bench in his rookie year, then did a year of military service. When he came back, he was the backup to Hall of Famer Chuck Howley. But Howley was 36 in the 1972 season.
“It took two or three years for it to click for me and understand what it’s all about,” Lewis once said during an interview for the Cowboys’ “Deep Blue” documentary. “But especially when Chuck got hurt in the 1972 season, that’s when I got my chance to play.”
DD Lewis Was ‘The Best LB in the Country’
Though he went in the sixth round, Lewis was a ballyhooed player coming out of college. Georgia legend Vince Dooley said he was “the best linebacker we faced,” and the legendary Bear Bryant said, “No doubt about it, the best linebacker in the country.”
While it took Lewis a while to be a regular, once Howley retired, his career took off.
Lewis missed only four games in 13 years. He holds the team record for playoff appearances, playing in 27 postseason games in all, with two Super Bowl championships. He is best known for the game he had in the 1975 NFC championship, when he intercepted Rams quarterback Ron Jaworski twice on the way to a 37-7 Cowboys rout before the team lost to the Steelers in that year’s Super Bowl.
Cowboys Remember Lewis
He will be well-remembered. Iconic Cowboys coach Tom Landry once praised Lewis as the most underappreciated player of his Cowboys dynasty team.
“Yeah, D.D.’s such a great guy,” teammate Bob Breunig once said. “D.D. was a locker room peacemaker, peacekeeper, because everybody loved D.D. I mean, he’s got this happy spirit about him and was a great linebacker, too, by the way.”
“D.D. was a great player,” Thomas “Hollywood” Henderson, the former Cowboys great said, via the Dallas Morning News. “He kept Thomas Henderson from the weakside because he played it so well. D.D. was a tough guy and I wanted his job Day 1, but I never could get it because he played [coach Tom] Landry’s defense and I couldn’t interrupt that. So I ended up on the strong side, which was better for me because I got to box every down.”
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