Dallas Cowboys: 15 greatest quarterbacks in franchise history

Anyone who grew up watching Dallas Cowboys football in the 1990s had to feel a bit of nostalgia when Jerry Jones hired Jason Garrett as an offensive coordinator in 2007.

And those same players likely wanted to see Garrett finally become the head coach Jones believes he could be — even if he frustrated them at times during his former tenure as the main shot-caller in Big D, which started midway through the 2010 NFL season and ended nearly a decade later.

The reason for this is the way Garrett played as a backup quarterback for the Cowboys for seven seasons from 1993 through 1999. During that time, Garrett served as a third-string option behind players such as Bernie Kosar and Rodney Peete, but he was always able to make the most out of every opportunity. He eventually became the primary backup to Troy Aikman from 1995 to 1999.

In all, Garrett played in just 23 games for Dallas with nine starts and had a respectable 6-3 record. He was good for just over 56 percent of his passes and threw 11 touchdowns against only five interceptions. Still, none of that is why Dallas fans loved Garrett as the backup quarterback. Instead, it was his performance in the 1994 Thanksgiving game against the Green Bay Packers.

Peete was already filling in for an injured Aikman, but he hurt his thumb in the game before the Thanksgiving showdown. That put the third-stringer under center for just his second career start. All No. 17 did was win the NFC Offensive Player of the Week award by lighting the Packers up for 311 yards (on just 15 completions) with two touchdowns in a come-from-behind 42-31 win.

Garrett never had another game with that kind of success, but he won over fans with that performance and proved that he could get the job done, even if he didn’t have the physical tools of some of the other players in the league.