Only days earlier, DeMarcus Ware had been laying on the turf in Dallas, unclear on what was happening around him and unsure if he’d ever play football again.

It was December 2009 and Ware, playing for the Cowboys, had been hit in the head rushing San Diego quarterback Phillip Rivers. Teammates gathered around him. He recalls Marcus Spears above him saying, “DeMarcus, will you please move?”

Several hours later, he was released from the hospital with the best possible news news: A neck sprain, but no other damage.

The problem: Dallas had a short week of preparation before playing Sean Payton’s 13-0 New Orleans Saints on Saturday night.

Payton, now the Broncos coach, was sure Ware had no chance of returning so quickly.

“The injury report didn’t look positive, especially when it was a neck and a back,” Payton told reporters in Denver this week. “And so our Wednesday third-down meeting, normally we’d spend a lot of time on how we were going to handle him, nudge him, chip him, but we made the mistake of kind of overlooking that.”

What a mistake it was, betting against the future Class of 2023 Hall of Famer, who is set to be enshrined Saturday, Aug. 5 in Canton, Ohio.

The Cowboys entered at 8-5 and needed a win to solidify their postseason aspirations.

Before the game, Ware had a chat with quarterback Tony Romo.

“I saw all the guys with their head down, and Romo said something in the locker room and he said, ‘We don’t have Superman,’” Ware said recently. “He used to call me Superman all the time. It chokes me up a little bit. But I saw my pads with no jersey on, and I went and asked (coach Wade Phillips), ‘Can I just go play on third down?’ He said, ‘Are you kidding me? No.’ I ended up playing a couple of third downs. And I remember Sean Payton ran the ball at me, it was third and 18, and I got pissed.

“And so I said, ‘No, let me stay in the game the rest of the game.’”

By the time that play unfolded, Payton already knew he had a problem on his hands.

“Here comes game day and he’s running through the tunnel getting introduced and I’m like, ‘You’ve got to be kidding me,’” Payton said.

Ware didn’t start, but he logged two sacks and two forced fumbles nonetheless. The Cowboys handed New Orleans their first loss of the year, sparked a three-game winning streak to end the season and rolled into the postseason at 11-5.

Payton and the Saints got the last laugh, winning the Super Bowl and learning from the mistake.

“Six games later in the Super Bowl we went through the same thing with (Colts pass-rusher) Dwight Freeney, who had an injured ankle,” Payton said. “And we met until 2 in the morning as if Dwight was healthy and full speed. You learn some lessons the hard way.”

Ware imparted a whole a lot of lessons in his illustrious 12-year career.

In 2016, he was coming off a Super Bowl title of his own with the Broncos when he ran into a rookie safety in the lunch room named Justin Simmons.

“I just sat there and he acted like we were friends for years,” Simmons said. “Asking me how old I was, what school I came from, how bad we were, this, that and the other.”

Simmons laughed at Ware’s sense of humor, “Especially it was funny because he went to Troy — no shots.

“But I love D-Ware, man. He’s the epitome of what I try to be for our younger guys. Him, T.J. (Ward), Aqib (Talib), all the guys I came in as a rookie with. The way they took guys in, that culture, you could tell that they’d been doing things the right way and I just appreciate him a lot. It was only a year, he’s probably done that for so many other guys that he doesn’t even remember.

“I appreciate him and he’s more than deserving. He was a heck of a player for so long between Dallas and here.”

Ware apparently has quite a knack for first impressions.

Former Broncos defensive line coach Bill Kollar worked with Ware extensively in pass-rush situations during the 2015 and 2016 seasons even though he wasn’t Ware’s true position coach. But the pair happened to get elected into the Senior Bowl Hall of Fame together in 2014 along with wide receiver Torrey Holt.

“What a great guy (Ware) was, having never even met him,” Kollar told The Post. “… I’d watched him forever and knew how great a player he was. Then getting the chance to coach him out here when he’s here, you think, oh man, it was kind of a dream-come-true type of deal.

“Great player – obviously, to get into the Hall of Fame you’ve got to be. But then even a better person. As a player and a coach, you love something like that because there’s a lot of guys that aren’t like that.”

Ware collected the final 21.5 of his 138.5 sacks over three seasons in Denver. Before any of them, though, he took the 2005 offseason by storm in Dallas after getting selected No. 11 overall in the draft.

“The ceiling was so high for him,” then-Cowboys linebacker Scott Shanle told The Post. “Flozell Adams was our left tackle and he was one of the better ones in the league, and (Ware) ran around him like he was standing still on the first day of training camp. You’re like, ‘Holy crap, this kid.’

“I don’t even think DeMarcus knew how good he was, but he grew into his potential. He was phenomenal.”

On the offensive coaching staff of that Dallas team: Payton, who all these years later in Denver can still remember clearly what he thought of the young pass-rusher who would make his mark in Dallas and win a title with the Broncos before earning a Hall of Fame bust.

“I know how much (then-Cowboys head coach Bill Parcells) thought of him and really anybody who’s had the chance to play with him or coach with him either be it here in Denver or in Dallas I think saw right away all those traits that you’re looking for,” Payton said. “It’s much deserved.”

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