Fall is here, and the Cowboys will be hosting a late-afternoon game this Sunday.
That means it’s time to dig up everybody’s most infuriating topic and- ahem- once again drag it out into the light.
Unless you’ve been living in a cave, you know that AT&T Stadium is anything but. Cowboys owner Jerry Jones had the $1.1 billion venue constructed in 2009 with every amenity imaginable: the world’s longest single-span retractable roof, 120-foot-tall sliding doors on either end, a 160-foot video screen suspended 90 feet over the playing surface, and an expandable capacity that allows 100,000 fans to attend games within its three million square feet.
But Jones also had the stadium oriented on a very unusual northeast-by-southwest axis. And when the sun starts to set in North Texas this time of year, it shines full-bore through the beautiful glass doors on the west end of the building and can leave players on the field literally blinded.
But Cowboys head coach Brian Schottenheimer is well aware that there’s nothing to be done about it as his team prepares to welcome the Washington Commanders on Sunday.
In fact, he repeated the long-held company line that the team actively plans for it.
“I’ve been here for a little while, and I’ve heard about it,” he joked with reporters Wednesday. “If you guys could see the process and the plan we have in place to figure it out: we have satellite imaging, we have pictures of the sun, when it’s coming down. There’s a big plan and process. But I think when you look, historically, at what’s happened, it really hasn’t affected many situations.”
Except that’s not true. The sun has directly affected multiple games in recent memory. Dez Bryant and Brice Butler both lost balls in the sun during a 2017 outing. Opposing players ranging from Aaron Rodgers to Travis Kelce have complained about it. And last November, wide receiver CeeDee Lamb failed to reel in an easy touchdown grab during a divisional matchup with the Eagles when he looked back for the ball and found himself staring directly into the sun.
Schottenheimer himself was with the team for that one. At the time, he told reporters (many of whom who were also at his Wednesday presser) that he’d never seen the sun impact a game so dramatically as in that Eagles game.
Fans were livid then, with many pointing out the most obvious solution would be a giant Texas-sized set of curtains, a suggestion even Lamb endorsed publicly. Cowboys owner Jerry Jones got testy in defending the stadium’s architecture, bizarrely selling the team’s familiarity with the blinding glare as one of the Cowboys’ home-field advantages.
“We do know where the damn sun’s going to be in our own stadium,” he said at one point.
AT&T Stadium, of course, does own curtains that can be put up over the glass enclosures; they’re used frequently for other events like basketball games, concerts, wrestling matches, monster truck rallies, RV shows and the like, and are utilized at the discretion of the hosting organization.
Jones has insisted he won’t use them, however, for Cowboys home games.
“It has been an advantage for us to know where the sun is,” he said last year. “I don’t want to change that.”
Jones has also made no secret that he loves the dramatic photos that result from games being played with the sunlight streaming in to backlight players… even if it makes playing the game incredibly difficult and downright dangerous.
If for no other reason than Jones’s own personal preference, Schottenheimer knows the sun will be something he and his 2025 team just has to deal with. Commanders head coach Dan Quinn is equally aware of the issue, thanks to his time in Dallas as the Cowboys defensive coordinator.
“We plan for it; the opponents plan for it. But at the end of the day, it’s something that we’re aware of,” the coach said Wednesday before continuing with a knowing smirk. “It’s very beautiful. It’s majestic when the sun comes through there.”
Majestic, yes. Blindingly frustrating, also yes.
Get ready for the annual debate over which is more important.
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This article originally appeared on Cowboys Wire: It’s fall in Dallas. Get ready for Cowboys’ annual battle with late-afternoon sun
Reporting by Todd Brock, Cowboys Wire / Cowboys Wire
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
