Skip to content 
The Dallas Cowboys have never retired a jersey number. Not one, in sixty-six years. They are one of five clubs in the NFL that does not do it, and instead they quietly mark a number as already in use and stop handing it out, which is a different thing and a stranger one.
That is the useful way into shopping for this particular fan, because it means the numbers still carry weight without a ceremony attached. Aikman's 8 has not been issued since 2000. Staubach's 12 has not been issued since 1979. Emmitt's 22 sat on Bob Hayes before him, and Hayes is still the only man in history with an Olympic gold medal and a Super Bowl ring.
And then there is 88, which is the opposite: deliberately kept in circulation and handed down. Drew Pearson, then Michael Irvin, then Dez Bryant, then CeeDee Lamb, with the club holding it empty in between rather than giving it to somebody ordinary. That is a better story than a retirement ceremony and it is the one this guide is built on.
Ten of the twenty-four items are under fifty dollars, the range runs from a thirty dollar plaque to a three-signature helmet at $2,649.99, and Thanksgiving against Philadelphia is November 26.
Find it fast
Pick any combination. The list below filters as you go.
Nothing matches that combination.
Try widening the budget, or reset and start over.If You're in a Hurry
Starter Two-Pack Logo Tee Set
Best under $25Glory Days, by the Equipment Manager
Best splurgeThree Generations of 88, Signed
Best experienceEagles at Cowboys, Thanksgiving
Six Numbers, None of Them Retired
The numbers Dallas keeps out of circulation without ever holding a ceremony, and what to buy the fan who knows the difference. Tap a number.
Tap a number to see what to buy the fan who knows the story.
The Ones With a Signature
Five signed pieces, and the first of them puts three generations of the same number on one helmet.
Michael Irvin, CeeDee Lamb and Drew Pearson Signed Riddell Speed Authentic Helmet, Inscribed HOF 21
Three men who wore the same number, on one helmet. There is no other object in this guide that explains the Cowboys as efficiently as this one does.
The famous version of the lineage is four names. The actual roster history is twelve, with three dead periods in it: nobody wore 88 from 1984 to 1987, from 2006 to 2009, or in 2018 and 2019. It is handed down, but not continuously, and the gaps are the club waiting for somebody worth giving it to.
CeeDee Lamb did not ask for it. He picked number 10 as a rookie in 2020 and switched only after the front office sat him down and explained what he would be taking on.
The forgotten name in the lineage is Antonio Bryant, who wore it from 2002 to 2004, threw his jersey in Bill Parcells' face at a practice, and was traded to Cleveland weeks later. The number that gets handed down reverently has also been thrown on the ground.
This is the on-field Riddell Speed shell rather than a replica, which is where most of the price sits. Individually numbered tamper-evident hologram, verifiable online. Full size helmets ship oversized, so expect a longer transit than anything else here, and signed items are excluded from standard returns.
Emmitt Smith, Michael Irvin and Troy Aikman Signed Riddell Speed Authentic Helmet with Multiple Inscriptions
The three of them went into the Ring of Honor together at a Monday night halftime in 2005, which is the only time the Cowboys have inducted three men at once.
Between them: three Super Bowls in four seasons, 1992, 1993 and 1995. No NFL team has won three in four years since, and it has now been thirty years.
Emmitt's 18,355 rushing yards are still the NFL record and are unlikely to be threatened, because nobody carries the ball 4,409 times anymore.
Two of these three numbers, Aikman's 8 and Emmitt's 22, are quietly kept out of circulation. Neither has ever been officially retired, because this franchise does not do that.
The most expensive item in this guide by a distance, and it is a genuine three-signature authentic shell rather than a replica. Ships oversized. Signed items are excluded from returns, and at this price you want to verify the hologram online before it leaves the box.
Roger Staubach and Tony Dorsett Signed Duke Full Colour Football
Two numbers on one ball, and both of them are on this page's rail: Staubach's 12 and Dorsett's 33.
Staubach won the Heisman in 1963 and then served four years in the Navy, including a year in Vietnam, before playing a down of professional football. He did not become the Cowboys' starter until he was thirty.
Dorsett won the Heisman in 1976 and a national championship at Pitt, then Rookie of the Year in 1977 and a Super Bowl ring in his first season. He also holds a record nobody can break: a 99 yard touchdown run, against Minnesota on January 3, 1983, with only ten men on the field because the Cowboys had a personnel error.
The Duke is the official NFL game ball name, retired in 1970 when the leagues merged and brought back by Wilson in 2006.
A full colour ball rather than a white panel, which looks better on a shelf and is slightly harder to read a signature on. Signed items are excluded from standard returns. If the recipient's era is the nineties rather than the seventies, the Triplets helmet above is the equivalent piece.
Troy Aikman Signed White Mitchell & Ness 1994 Alternate Legacy Jersey
Aikman is the only quarterback in NFL history to win three Super Bowls in four seasons, and he did it while throwing for fewer than 3,500 yards in every one of those years, because that team did not need him to.
He was the first overall pick in 1989, went 0-11 as a rookie starter on a 1-15 team, and won a championship three years later.
The 1994 alternate this reproduces is the white double star jersey the Cowboys wore during the middle of the dynasty. It is also the year they did not win, losing the NFC Championship in San Francisco.
Number 8 has not been issued since he retired in 2000, and it has never been retired either, which is the distinction this whole guide is built on.
A signed jersey wants a frame and UV glass rather than a hanger, and framing a jersey properly runs two to four hundred dollars on top. Signed items are excluded from standard returns. The team store's 25 percent code was live against this price and will expire.
Michael Irvin Signed Franklin White Panel Football by Fanatics Authentic
White panel is the correct signing surface, because ink sits properly on smooth leather rather than pebbled grain. It is why these carry a premium over a full colour ball.
Irvin had 750 receptions for 11,904 yards, both still Cowboys records thirty years on, and he was a first team All-Pro exactly once, in 1991.
In 1995 he caught 111 passes for 1,603 yards, which is still the franchise single season record, in the year they won the last Super Bowl this club has won.
His career ended on the turf at Veterans Stadium on October 10, 1999, on a cervical spine injury, while a section of Philadelphia fans cheered. He was thirty-three.
Individually numbered tamper-evident hologram, verifiable online before you buy. The 25 percent Fanatics Authentic code was live against this price and it rotates and expires, so $349.99 is what the listing reverts to. Signed items are excluded from returns.
Wearing It
Two jerseys thirty years apart, a lululemon tee for somebody who will not wear merchandise, and two shirts for thirty-six dollars.
Men's Roger Staubach White 1975 Authentic Throwback Retired Player Jersey by Mitchell & Ness
1975 is the specific year for a specific reason. On December 28, 1975, in the divisional round at Metropolitan Stadium, Staubach threw fifty yards to Drew Pearson to beat Minnesota with twenty-four seconds left, and told reporters afterward that he closed his eyes and said a Hail Mary.
The phrase existed in football before that afternoon, but that is the throw that put it into general English. It is now in the dictionary.
The man who caught it wore 88, which is the number this guide is really about, and he did not go into the Hall of Fame until 2021, forty-six years later.
Staubach also has twenty-three career fourth quarter comebacks, fourteen of them in the last two minutes, out of only 114 career starts.
Authentic cut rather than replica, which means tackle twill numbers and a fit built to go over pads, so it runs large through the shoulders. This is a $300 jersey of a man who last played in 1979, so the recipient should already know exactly why. Mitchell & Ness processing runs several days before shipping.
Men's CeeDee Lamb Navy Alternate Game Team Jersey by Nike
The only jersey in this guide of somebody who will play a game this season, and it happens to carry the number the whole page is organised around.
Lamb chose 10 as a rookie in 2020 and only took 88 after the club walked him through the lineage. He is the fourth famous man to wear it and the twelfth overall.
In 2023 he caught 135 passes for 1,749 yards, both franchise records, breaking marks that had belonged to Michael Irvin since the middle of the dynasty.
The navy alternate is the sharper of the two everyday looks and it is not the jersey the Cowboys wear at home, because Dallas famously wears white at home and has since the sixties.
Game is the entry Nike tier: screen printed numbers on a lighter body, as against Limited and Elite further up. It is the right tier for most people and the wrong tier for anybody expecting stitching. Buy the name that is on the roster today rather than customising, because customised jerseys are non-returnable everywhere.
Men's White America's Team T-Shirt by Mitchell & Ness
America's Team was not a slogan and nobody in Dallas invented it. It was the title an NFL Films editor named Bob Ryan put on the 1978 Cowboys season highlight reel because he needed something better than The Dallas Cowboys 1978 Season.
The front office reportedly hated it, on the correct theory that it would hand every opponent in the league bulletin board material for the next fifty years. It did exactly that, which is why it stuck.
The team that earned the name went 12-4 and lost Super Bowl XIII to Pittsburgh, 35-31. The most famous nickname in American sport came out of a season that ended in a defeat.
It is also why the phrase is said with a sneer roughly as often as it is said with pride, and both readings are correct.
Sizes stop at 2XL, which is unusually narrow for an NFL tee, so check before ordering for a bigger recipient. The store's 25 percent code was live against this price and will expire. Mitchell & Ness is the only licensee permitted to reproduce Cowboys throwback marks, which is why this graphic is not a generic blank.
Women's White Cates T-Shirt by lululemon
This is the item for somebody who likes the team and does not want to look like a gift shop. It is a lululemon Cates tee with a small Cowboys mark, on lululemon's own fabric and cut.
Forty percent off a $58 lululemon tee is a genuinely unusual discount, because that brand almost never marks down outside its own outlet channel.
It also sidesteps the standard problem with women's NFL merchandise, which is that most of it is a men's design in pink or with rhinestones added.
The Cowboys were the first NFL club to put a lululemon collection in the team store, which is a small fact that explains why this exists at all.
lululemon sizing runs in numeric sizes rather than S through XL, so you need the recipient's actual number. At forty percent off this is clearance rather than a promotion, which means the good sizes go first and will not come back.
Men's Navy and Heather Grey Two-Pack Logo T-Shirt Set by Starter
Two shirts for thirty-six dollars, which works out to eighteen dollars each, and is the best pure value in this guide.
Starter is the correct label for this. The company defined licensed sports apparel in the late eighties and early nineties, went bankrupt in 1999, and was revived as a value brand, which is exactly the era the Cowboys' best years sit in.
It is also the honest answer to a real problem with gift guides: most people who like a team want a shirt they can wear on a Tuesday, not a two hundred dollar object.
Navy and heather grey rather than two of the same, so it does not read as buying in bulk.
Both shirts come in the same size, so this only works if you know it. Forty percent off makes it a clearance line, which at this store frequently means returns are excluded, so check the listing before you guess a size.
Men's Black Super Bowl XXX Champions Lux Pro Snapback by Mitchell & Ness
Super Bowl XXX, January 28, 1996, at Sun Devil Stadium in Tempe. Cowboys 27, Steelers 17. It is still the last championship this franchise has won, thirty years and seven months ago.
The MVP was a cornerback named Larry Brown, who intercepted Neil O'Donnell twice, turned one afternoon into a $12.5 million contract with the Raiders, and started nine more games in his entire career.
The head coach was Barry Switzer, which puts him on a very short list of men who have won both a college national championship and a Super Bowl. Jimmy Johnson had done it three years earlier with the same team.
It was Dallas's third title in four seasons. No NFL team has won three in four years since.
One size with a snapback closure, so no sizing risk, which makes it one of the few safe blind gifts here. A snapback sits higher and flatter than a fitted cap and not everybody likes that silhouette, so it suits somebody who already wears them.
Youth CeeDee Lamb Navy Player Name and Number Long Sleeve T-Shirt by Nike
A name and number long sleeve is the right call for a child rather than a jersey, because it costs a third as much, it goes in a washing machine, and it can be worn to school.
The number on the back is also the safest one in Dallas. Whoever wears 88 next will be somebody worth handing it to, so the shirt ages into history rather than out of it.
Lamb set the franchise single season records for catches and yards in 2023, breaking marks Michael Irvin had held since the dynasty.
He is twenty-seven and under contract, which in football is about as much certainty as anybody gets.
Long sleeve name and number tees run slim through the body in Nike youth sizing, so size up for a child between sizes. This is a current player rather than a legend, so it is a bet, but 88 is the one number in Dallas where the bet is hedged.
For the Kid
One jersey with a number that cannot be traded away, because it has not been issued since 2004.
Preschool Emmitt Smith White 1994 Alternate Legacy Jersey by Mitchell & Ness
Emmitt Smith's 18,355 rushing yards are the NFL record and have been since 2002. Nobody is going to break it, because no team gives one player 4,409 carries anymore.
He is also the only running back ever to win a rushing title, an MVP and a Super Bowl in the same season, which he did in 1993.
The most quoted thing about him is the shoulder. On January 2, 1994 at the Meadowlands, with the division on the line, he separated his right shoulder in the second quarter and carried the ball thirty-two times anyway, for 168 yards, and the Cowboys won in overtime.
Number 22 belongs to two men in Dallas history: Emmitt, and Bob Hayes before him. It has never been retired and it has not been issued in a very long time.
Preschool sizing, so this is for a small child rather than a school-age one, and there is a youth version at a higher price if you need bigger. Twenty-five percent off makes it a clearance run, which means sizes will sell through and not restock, and clearance at this store frequently excludes returns.
On the Wall and On the Bar
Five Super Bowl tickets in one frame, the helmet from the 0-11-1 season, and the only honest generic item in the guide.
Dallas Cowboys Super Bowl Replica Ticket Collection Wall Frame
Five replica tickets in one frame: VI, XII, XXVII, XXVIII and XXX. Only three franchises have more.
Super Bowl VI, January 16, 1972, is the one people forget. Dallas beat Miami 24-3 and held them to a Super Bowl record low that still stands, and Bob Lilly is the reason. His sack of Bob Griese went backwards twenty-nine yards, which is still the longest loss on a sack in Super Bowl history.
Lilly is the first man the Cowboys ever put in the Ring of Honor, in November 1975, and his 74 is one of the numbers this page is built on. There is essentially nothing else you can buy with his name on it, which is why this frame is where he lives in this guide.
The gap between the first two tickets and the last three is fifteen years. The gap after the last one is now thirty.
These are replica tickets rather than original stubs, and the card should say so plainly. Genuine 1972 or 1996 stubs exist and trade individually at auction for real money. This is a good gift as long as nobody opens it expecting the other thing.
Dallas Cowboys Legacy 14 by 21 Inch Photomint by The Highland Mint
Highland Mint has been an official NFL commemorative licensee for decades and also makes the coins used for actual pregame coin tosses, which is a better provenance than most wall art has.
The Legacy format pairs photography with a minted medallion in a single framed piece, which is the reason it reads as an object rather than a poster.
At 14 by 21 it fits a normal wall, unlike the panorama formats that need thirty-nine inches and a stud.
It is the middle option in this section: more substantial than a print, considerably less than a signed jersey and a framing bill.
Being straight with you: the product page does not clearly state which photographs are in the frame, and the listing image is the only guide to what arrives. If the specific imagery matters to the recipient, this is one to look at closely before ordering rather than buying blind.
Dallas Cowboys 1960-1963 Throwback Speed Mini Helmet by Riddell
This is the shell from the beginning, and the beginning was terrible. The 1960 Cowboys went 0-11-1, which is still the worst debut season any modern NFL expansion team has had.
They were not even supposed to exist yet. The league admitted them on short notice in 1960 to block the rival AFL from putting a team in Dallas, so they missed the expansion draft entirely and were stocked with other clubs' castoffs.
Tom Landry then produced twenty consecutive winning seasons from 1966 to 1985, which is still the longest such run in NFL history, and he was hired for the 0-11-1 team and never fired until Jerry Jones bought the club in 1989.
The star on the side has barely changed in sixty-six years, which is why a 1960 shell and a 2026 shell are recognisably the same object.
Roughly quarter scale and display only, not wearable and not protective, and the product photography reads much larger than the object. It is also the cheapest clean signing surface in the guide if the recipient ever gets to an alumni appearance.
Tony Dorsett Dallas Cowboys 8 by 10 Plaque
Dorsett holds the one record in football that literally cannot be broken, only tied: a 99 yard touchdown run, against Minnesota on January 3, 1983.
The detail that makes it absurd is that the Cowboys had only ten men on the field. A personnel mix-up left them a player short, the play was supposed to go to the fullback, and Dorsett ran ninety-nine yards out of his own end zone instead.
He won the Heisman in 1976, a national title at Pitt, Rookie of the Year in 1977 and a Super Bowl ring in that same rookie season. Very few careers start like that.
His 12,036 rushing yards as a Cowboy are second only to Emmitt, and 33 has been quietly out of circulation for most of the time since, without ever being retired.
The trading card mounted inside varies and will not necessarily be the one in the product photograph, which is the consistent complaint about this entire plaque line and worth saying plainly at thirty dollars. Cherry wood with an engraved nameplate and an acrylic cover.
Dallas Cowboys Limited Edition 2026 Silver-Plated Game Flip Coin by The Highland Mint
Highland Mint makes the coins used for actual NFL pregame coin tosses, so this is a commemorative version of a real object rather than a souvenir shaped like one.
The date is the point. A 2026 coin is a marker for a specific season, which makes it the sort of thing somebody buys every year and lines up on a shelf.
The coin toss itself is a small part of Cowboys history: on Thanksgiving in 1998 against Minnesota, referee Phil Luckett's handling of a coin toss call in a different game that same day caused the NFL to change the rule so that captains must now call it in the air, loudly and before the toss.
Silver plated rather than solid silver, which is what keeps it at fifty dollars.
The listing does not publish an edition size, so treat limited edition as marketing language rather than a known population. Silver plated, not solid. Dated items sell through at the end of a season and are not reissued, so if somebody wants the 2026 one, that window closes in January.
Dallas Cowboys 12oz Rambler Colster Can Cooler by YETI
Worth being honest about this one: it is a standard YETI Colster with a Cowboys mark on it, and the same product exists for all thirty-two teams. There is no Dallas story attached to it.
It is in this guide because it is the item on the list most likely to get used every Sunday for ten years, which is a different kind of good gift from the ones with a story.
YETI is also from Austin, founded in 2006 by two Texan brothers, so at least the company is local to the state even if the product is not specific to the team.
Double wall vacuum insulation, fits a standard twelve ounce can, and it is dishwasher safe, which the cheaper koozies are not.
It fits standard twelve ounce cans only. Slim cans need the separate Colster Slim, and it will not take a bottle without the adapter. If you want everything in this guide to carry a story, this is the one to skip, and I would rather tell you that than pretend otherwise.
Read It, Eat It
A book by the man who handed out the numbers, and three things from Dallas rather than from Texas in general.
Glory Days: Life with the Dallas Cowboys, 1973-1998 by Buck Buchanan and Stephen D. Stainkamp
Buck Buchanan was the Cowboys' equipment manager for twenty-five seasons. Which means he is the man who physically handed out the jersey numbers this entire page is organised around.
His tenure runs 1973 to 1998, and that is not a coincidence of dates. It begins the exact year Drew Pearson first pulled on 88 and ends the year before Michael Irvin's career finished on a neck injury. He was in the room for the whole arc of the number.
He was also there for all five Super Bowls, for Landry's last day, and for Jerry Jones's first.
Roger Staubach wrote the foreword, which puts a Ring of Honor quarterback's name on a book by the man who washed his socks.
This is deliberately not the famous one. If you want the well known dynasty book, that is Jeff Pearlman's Boys Will Be Boys, and most serious Cowboys fans already own it. A 2006 Taylor Trade title with a small print run is the better gift precisely because it is not on the shelf already. Bookshop fulfils through Ingram, so allow five to ten business days.
Corny Dogs Best Seller, Twelve Pack, by Fletcher's Original Corny Dogs
Fletcher's has sold corny dogs at the State Fair of Texas since 1942, and the fair happens at Fair Park, which is where the Cotton Bowl is, which is where the Cowboys played their home games from 1960 to 1971.
So the food and the franchise share an address for the first twelve years of the team's existence, including the Super Bowl VI season.
Neil and Carl Fletcher, vaudeville performers turned concessionaires, introduced them the same year and the family still runs it. They sell in the region of half a million of them across the fair's twenty-four days.
This is the closest thing to a Cowboys food item that is genuinely about Dallas rather than about Texas in general.
Ships frozen and needs to go into a freezer on arrival, so somebody has to be home. They are baked or fried from frozen rather than microwaved, which the instructions are clear about and people ignore. Food orders are non-returnable, and Goldbelly ships on set dates chosen at checkout.
Texas Sausage Links by Hutchins BBQ
Hutchins is in McKinney, about thirty miles north of downtown Dallas, and has been running since 1978. It is a genuine local institution rather than a brand assembled for shipping.
Sausage is the right Texas barbecue item to mail. Brisket loses more in transit and reheating than sausage does, which is why this is the more forgiving gift of the two even though brisket is the more famous one.
Texas barbecue sausage is its own tradition, descended from the German and Czech butcher shops of Central Texas in the nineteenth century, which is why the smoked links here are coarse ground and beef forward rather than pork sausage in a barbecue sauce.
It is also the item on this page most likely to end up in a parking lot outside AT&T Stadium, which is the correct destination for it.
Ships frozen with ice packs, so it needs a freezer the day it lands. Goldbelly's floor is around seventy-five dollars, which is why there is no cheap food item anywhere in this guide. Perishable food is non-returnable and delivery dates are chosen at checkout.
Prime Post Oak Smoked Brisket, Sliced, Three Pounds, by Pecan Lodge
Pecan Lodge started in 2010 as a stall in the Dallas Farmers Market and now sits in Deep Ellum. It is the barbecue restaurant most responsible for Dallas being taken seriously by people who only wanted to talk about Austin.
Post oak is the specific wood of Central Texas barbecue and it is not interchangeable. It burns hot and clean and gives a lighter smoke than hickory or mesquite, which is why Texas brisket tastes different from Kansas City or Memphis.
Prime is the top USDA grade and represents a small share of American beef, so a prime brisket is a genuinely different starting product from the choice grade most places smoke.
Three pounds sliced feeds six to eight people properly, which makes this the food item on this page built for a room rather than a person.
Arrives sliced and frozen, which is the tradeoff: it reheats far more easily than a whole packer brisket and it will never be quite what it was coming off the smoker. Reheat gently in a covered pan with a little liquid rather than a microwave. Non-returnable, and it needs freezer space the day it lands.
Thanksgiving
The Eagles, at three thirty, on the date this franchise volunteered for when nobody else wanted it.
Eagles at Cowboys, Thanksgiving Day, November 26, 2026 at AT&T Stadium
Thursday, November 26, 3:30 in the afternoon, against Philadelphia. There is no better single date to hand somebody in this entire guide.
The Cowboys have hosted a Thanksgiving game every year since 1966 except 1975 and 1977. Tex Schramm volunteered Dallas for the date when nobody else wanted it, reasoning that a national holiday audience was free advertising. He was right, and it built the America's Team audience years before the film that named it.
Cowboys and Eagles on Thanksgiving is also the Bounty Bowl. On November 23, 1989, Buddy Ryan's Eagles shut out Jimmy Johnson's 1-15 Cowboys 27-0 at Texas Stadium, and Ryan was accused on air of putting a bounty on kicker Luis Zendejas. The rematch two weeks later in Philadelphia turned into a snowball riot.
The range is enormous. Standing room was showing at seventy-six dollars all in, a home side seat in section 216 at $864, and a club seat in C210 at $3,822. Same game, fifty times the price.
StubHub displays all-in pricing, so the number on the listing is the number at checkout. Resale moves daily and a Thanksgiving game against Philadelphia will move a lot between now and November, so treat every figure here as a snapshot and go to the event page rather than a specific listing. The seventy-six dollar option is standing room only, not a seat.
How Deep Does It Go?
Five questions. We will tell you what tier of Cowboys fan you are shopping for, and what to actually buy them.
What Not to Buy a Cowboys Fan
Five things that look sensible in a search result and land badly when the box is opened.
The Bottom Line
The pattern here is different from the rest of these guides, and better. Everywhere else the advice is to buy the man rather than the crest. In Dallas you buy the number, because the numbers do the work a retirement ceremony does elsewhere, without anybody ever having held one.
For most people the honest answer is one of three. The Starter two-pack at $35.99, which is two shirts for eighteen dollars each and the best value on the page. The Buchanan book at $24.95, written by the man who literally handed out the numbers for twenty-five seasons. Or the five Super Bowl ticket frame at $89.99, which is the only affordable object that acknowledges all five.
If you are going big, the three-generation 88 helmet is the one. Pearson, Irvin and Lamb on a single shell is the franchise's own idea about itself, made into an object.
One piece of timing. Thanksgiving is November 26 against Philadelphia, on the date Tex Schramm volunteered for in 1966 because nobody else wanted it. Standing room was showing at about seventy-six dollars all in. It is the only thing in this guide with a date attached, and it is the one somebody will still be talking about in March.
