ARLINGTON, Texas — AT&T Stadium will not use window tinting or curtains for the Dallas Cowboys‘ home opener against the Washington Commanders, Jon Machota of The Athletic reported Sunday. Kickoff is set for 3:25 p.m. CT on FOX.
Machota’s post landed a few hours before kickoff. The 3:25 p.m. CT games, he added, are the ones the sun usually affects most at the stadium.
Jerry Jones And CeeDee Lamb On Tinting The AT&T Stadium Windows
Two days earlier, on 105.3 The Fan, Jerry Jones said he did not expect the tint to come back for the NFL season. The building’s blackout curtains have gone up for concerts and other events, never for a Cowboys game.
“I really don’t know about that at all,” Jones said Friday. “So, no, not necessarily.”
“No, I don’t think so,” Jones continued. “I don’t know of any plans to surprise our fans.”
Cowboys coach Brian Schottenheimer, in his own appearance on 105.3 The Fan on Friday, said “anything’s possible” when the tint came up.
CeeDee Lamb was talking to a rookie who has not played a late-afternoon game at AT&T Stadium. The far end zone there cost Lamb a touchdown in 2024.
“I think they’re gonna put tint on the glass now,” Lamb said last week on Caleb Downs‘ “Downs 2 Business” podcast. “So we’ll see.”
“I’m telling you, that 3:25 kickoff, when it gets around that second quarter, yeah, you’ll see,” Lamb continued. “That far end zone, it cost me a touchdown.”
The stadium’s end zones face east and west, unlike most NFL venues, so the sun comes through the glass at the west end during late-afternoon games. AT&T Stadium hosted nine World Cup matches this summer, more than any other venue in the tournament, and operated under the temporary name Dallas Stadium to satisfy FIFA’s rules on corporate sponsors. Curtains and tinted window coverings were used for at least some of the nine.
Before the Netherlands-Japan group stage match on June 14, the stadium put a tint over the large doors at each end of the building, and Nick Harris of the Fort Worth Star-Telegram reported that no glare or sunlight reached the pitch as a result. The playing surface was switched from turf to natural grass for the tournament, another FIFA requirement.
Chad Estis runs revenue for the Cowboys and AT&T Stadium as executive vice president and chief revenue officer. A Cowboys crowd and a World Cup crowd are not the same thing, he told the Dallas Morning News.
“We feel like the stadium operates incredibly well for Cowboys games and how we want it to,” Estis said. “It’s a different crowd. Different set of circumstances. The stadium is being used very differently.”
During training camp in Oxnard, California, Jones told Fox 4’s Mike Doocy that the angle of the sun at the stadium shifts from September onward, which made the summer reading hard to apply to the fall.
“Well, do you know something? Thinking about it and doing something about it are two different things,” Jones explained in early August. “But I’ll think about it. It’s hard to tell that time of the year, because the sun’s not the same this time of the year than it is in the fall. And that is, you get on into, sun changes, and the angle of that sun changes from September through year-round. But as we look at it, I like some of the effects of the tinting. And so we’re giving that a thought.”
How The Glare Has Come Into Play In Cowboys Games
Trailing 7-3 in the second quarter on Nov. 10, 2024, Dallas had second-and-goal from the Philadelphia Eagles‘ 3. Lamb was open on a crossing route in the end zone, and the throw from Cooper Rush went behind him. Rush said afterward he had been throwing to Lamb. The field goal that followed made it 7-6, and the Cowboys did not score again in a 34-6 loss that dropped them to 3-6 and 0-4 at AT&T Stadium.
Lamb pointed at his eyes, and he was still making the gesture on the sideline later.
“I couldn’t see the ball. Couldn’t see the ball, at all. The sun,” Lamb said that night. He said later that he was “one thousand percent” in favor of curtains.
Jones brought the sun up himself that night, more than five minutes into his session with reporters. Every team that visits gets the same conditions, he said.
“Well, let’s just tear the damn stadium down and build another one? You kidding me?” Jones said. “Everybody’s got the same thing. Every team that comes in here has the same issues. I’m saying the world knows where the sun is. We get to know that almost a year in advance.”
“So someone asked me about the sun. What about the sun? Where’s the moon?” Jones added. “We’re fine. But everybody plays in the sun out here.”
It came up again on Thanksgiving Day last season. Early in the second quarter of a 31-28 win over the Kansas City Chiefs, George Pickens never saw a throw from Dak Prescott, and the ball landed a few feet in front of him inside the 20-yard line. Pickens finished with 6 catches for 88 yards.
“It definitely did. Some of the guys told me, too. That was my first time having that,” Pickens said. “Just coming on the crossing route, the sun was beating in my eyes, so I couldn’t see. But made up for it.”
Lamb, who had 7 catches for 112 yards and a touchdown that afternoon, had been through it already.
“He already knew it. Welcome to Dallas, bro,” Lamb said.
In a 23-17 wild-card loss to the San Francisco 49ers on Jan. 16, 2022, a pass went past the head of Cedrick Wilson, who was looking back into the sun.
Both teams arrive at 0-1. Dallas lost 28-20 at the New York Giants on Sept. 13, and Washington lost 24-22 at Philadelphia. Kevin Burkhardt and Tom Brady have the call on FOX. The Cowboys host the Baltimore Ravens on Sept. 27, also at 3:25 p.m. CT.
