Eh he is 3rd all-time in sacks among Cowboys.
8 sacks a year was quite a lot back when teams ran the ball 55-60% of the time and like 2 teams regularly ran 3 WR sets as a base offense. But he was never an elite sack guy, no. Just very steady and good.
Ellis was a great team guy and took a lot of heat for simply not being Randy Moss. --which was one of the first cases where fans had zero situational awareness as Randy would have been eaten alive by all the media attention to his every move if he were a Cowboy.
Realistically, he averaged 7 sacks per season, and is 3rd in sacks among Cowboys because he had a decent, but not outstanding sack total over a long career, and because sacks weren't an official stat until 1982, so the numbers of guys like Harvey Martin, Too Tall Jones, Bob Lilly and Randy White weren't counted.
He just retired 11 years ago, not in an era where 8 sacks was quite a lot. Over his career the league leaders usually had double that or more.
Again, I'm not trying to belittle him because I loved him and thought he was a strong player for the Cowboys. I'm just setting the record straight as to the kind of player he was, and he was a guy who could contribute sacks, but he was not a big sack guy.