Best Dallas Cowboys player to wear No. 83 was with Bill Parcells on two teams

Welcome back to our series covering the best Dallas Cowboys players to wear every jersey number from No. 0 to No. 99.

Our first three entries of the 80s highlighted some of the best to ever play their respective positions, and while we don't have that here at No. 83, we do have some solid options from which to choose, players who never hit that elite level but made some meaningful contributions.

So, without further ado, let's go ahead and get into it by first looking at everyone who's worn No. 83 for America's Team over the years.

Jalen Brooks, WR
Ventell Bryant, WR
Mike Clark, K
Hayward Clay, TE
Harold Deters, K
Doug Donley, WR
Jim Doran, E
Lee Folkins, TE
Terry Glenn, WR
Leon Gonzalez, WR
Kelvin Martin, WR
Wane McGarity, WR
Joey Mickey, TE
Anthony Miller, WR
Golden Richards, WR
Martin Rucker, TE
James Washington, WR
Kendell Watkins, TE
James Whalen, TE
Terrance Williams, WR

After sorting through the list, our decision ultimately came down to four players, all wide receivers, with each coming from different decades.

From the mid-to-late years of the first Dallas dynasty in the 1970s, we've got Golden Richards, who caught 90 passes for 1,650 yards and 12 touchdowns in 66 regular-season games for the Cowboys from 1973 to 1978 and another nine for 150 yards and three touchdowns in the postseason, none more famous than his TD grab in the team's Super Bowl 12 victory over the Denver Broncos.

Next, we've got Kelvin Martin, who played seven seasons with the club, the first six from 1987 to 1992, meaning he got himself a Super Bowl ring, and then a seventh in 1996. In those seven seasons, Martin tallied 237 receptions for 3,083 yards with nine touchdowns during the regular season, adding nine catches for 94 yards and a score in seven playoff contests.

And then there's Terrance Williams, who caught 232 passes for 3,377 yards and 20 touchdowns in 83 regular-season games for Dallas from 2013 to 2018 and eight passes for 198 yards and three scores in three playoff appearances.

In the end, though, we went with a player from the Bill Parcells era in the early-to-mid 2000s, that being Terry Glenn.

Terry Glenn had a pair of 1,000-yard seasons with the Dallas Cowboys

A First-Team All-Big Ten selection and a consensus All-American at Ohio State in 1995, Glenn was taken by the New England Patriots in the first round of the 1996 NFL Draft with the seventh overall selection. Parcells, of course, was New England's head coach at the time and actually didn't want to draft Glenn but was overruled by owner Robert Kraft.

Glenn ultimately proved to be the right pick, as he took second in the Offensive Rookie of the Year voting after catching 90 passes for 1,132 yards and six touchdowns in helping the Pats reach Super Bowl 31, where they were defeated by the Green Bay Packers, after which Parcells left the team to join the New York Jets.

Glenn spent five more seasons in Foxborough, earning a Pro Bowl selection in 1999 and winning a Super Bowl in 2001 before being traded in 2002 to the Green Bay Packers, with whom he spent just one year before being traded to Dallas, where he was reunited with Parcells.

And just as he had in his first year with Parcells in New England, Glenn led his team in receiving yards in his first year with the Cowboys, going for 754 yards and five touchdowns on 52 receptions to help the club reach the playoffs for the first time in four years.

A foot injury limited the 5-foot-11, 195-pounder to just six games in 2004, but he bounced back beautifully in 2005 in reuniting with former Patriots quarterback Drew Bledsoe, catching 62 passes for 1,136 yards with a career-high seven touchdowns.

And in 2006, catching passes from both Bledsoe and Tony Romo, he tallied 70 receptions for 1,047 yards and six scores, which proved to be his final catches, as a knee injury held him to just one game in 2007, a game in which he failed to record a reception and proved to be the last one of his career.

Wildly, in his five years with the Cowboys, Glenn amassed 3,377 regular-season receiving yards, the exact same number as Terrance Williams, but he reached that figure playing 29 fewer games, which certainly helped his cause in taking this title as the best player in Dallas history to wear No. 83.

Other Dallas Cowboys jersey honorees

This list will be updated daily until all 100 entries are complete, so please be sure to check back in with The Landry Hat for updates.

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Terry Glenn had a pair of 1,000-yard seasons with the Dallas Cowboys

Other Dallas Cowboys jersey honorees

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