Cowboys owner and G.M. Jerry Jones specifically designed AT&T Stadium to create the impression that the indoor game was being played outdoors. This entailed rotating the structure so that the setting sun would send its rays through an end zone facing west.
That’s the simple truth at the heart of the sudden controversy regarding Jones’s refusal to put up curtains in order to keep the sun out of the eyes of his players. He wants it to look like that as the sun is setting.
But Jones is flat-out wrong when he calls it a home-field advantage. There’s no advantage for the Cowboys. It’s a factor that potentially affects both teams, a detail that needs to be taken into account.
Eagles offensive coordinator Kellen Moore, who played and coached in Dallas, was asked whether they identified the sunlight as a potential issue for Sunday’s game against the Cowboys.
“Yeah, in general for everyone, yeah,” Moore told reporters. “For everyone. I’ve been there. I was there a long time, so. . . .”
So how did Moore handle that while calling plays in Dallas?
“Stadiums all have different circumstances,” Moore said. “That one, the sun plays a decent role, so you just have to call plays according to it, knowing certain parts of the field at times can be a little bit challenging. We had it in the first quarter, towards the end of the first quarter in the red zone. And then [in the] second quarter, we were going the other way.”
The sun was lower in the second quarter, aiming more directly at the eyes of players looking back into it from the east end zone. For that reason, Cowboys coach Mike McCarthy shouldn’t have elected to receive the opening kickoff after winning the coin toss. He should have deferred, compelling the Eagles to take the ball and choosing to defend the west side of the field. By the second quarter, the Cowboys would have been pushing toward the end zone that wasn’t bathed in sunlight.
Then there’s the simple reality that, once the Cowboys were moving toward the end zone that was bathed in ultraviolet rays, McCarthy and company should have called plays accordingly, in order to keep players like CeeDee Lamb from having to pick up the football while fighting glare as intense as the final test of the Manhattan Project.
