After the dust settled, dropping the Cowboys to a miserable 3-6 record, Lamb solemnly said of this play, âCouldnât see the ball. Couldnât see the ball, at all. The sun.â Thatâsâ¦a major problem! But, as the 82-year-old Jones grumbled after the game, the sun has always been a factor, and both teams have to deal with it. Whatâs interesting, though, is how Jones handled basic questions from the media about this. When asked about the possibility of putting curtains on the massive windows, which would seemingly provide a permanent resolution, Jones said, âWell, letâs tear the damn stadium down and build another one?â He later added, âBy the way, we know where the sun is going to be when we decide to flip the coin or not. We do know where the damn sun is going to be in our own stadium.â
That last bit reads as a bit of a dig at head coach Mike McCarthy, the person whose job it is to know that the sun will render his players incapable of sight, and should have chosen to attack the other end zone when the Cowboys won the opening coin toss.
So that gives us one potential strategy: always win every coin toss, forever. Of courseâand stick with me here, Jerâyou could have considered this 15 years ago when building this expensive fortress! The best way to keep the sun out of your eyes is to face north and south, as any Little Leaguer whoâs ever played catch can tell you. (By the way, Lamb said heâs âone thousand percentâ in favor of installing some curtains.)
At this point, the Cowboysâ goose is cooked. NFL.com puts the teamâs playoff chances at 4%, and the hapless New York Giants are the only NFC team with fewer wins. Their quarterback is preparing for season-ending surgery, their coach is the most fired man in the world, and their owner is too stubborn to fix a very fixable problem that isnât going anywhere, at least until the sun explodes. (Bigger problem, that.) If the Dallas Cowboys are Americaâs Team, itâs fitting that the biggest theme of their latest loss is arguably the most American thing there is: a baffling refusal to change.