The Cowboys’ daylight downside at AT&T Stadium, defined

When Jerry Jones and the Dallas Cowboys unveiled AT&T Stadium, the brand new facility contained a large number of options that made it a state-of-the-art facility not only for the NFL staff, however for sporting contests and leisure occasions all year long.

For the soccer staff itself, AT&T Stadium contains a huge video board, suspended 90 ft above the sphere and measuring 160 ft large by 72 ft tall. AT&T Stadium additionally options 300 suites, one of many world’s largest retractable roofs — one that may be closed in below quarter-hour — and finish zone home windows and partitions that may be opened relying on the occasion going down.

Nevertheless, there’s one function that has posed an issue for the Cowboys, in addition to different groups visiting AT&T Stadium.

The solar.

Particularly, the angle of the solar, which is available in by these finish zone home windows late within the afternoon because the solar dips into the Texas horizon within the west. We are able to begin with this overhead view of AT&T Stadium, courtesy of Google Maps:

As you may see, the structure of AT&T Stadium runs barely East-West, from barely northeast on the precise facet (when trying on the stadium from above) to barely southwest.

That’s the place the angle of the solar, and the ensuing glare on the sphere, comes into play. Within the beneath picture from a 2022 recreation between the Cowboys and the Cincinnati Bengals, you may see what that appears like from the sphere:

Jerome Miron-Imagn Pictures

Many NFL analysts and writers identified the issues the solar created throughout Sunday’s recreation between the Cowboys and the Philadelphia Eagles, a recreation Dallas misplaced by a closing rating of 34-6. That loss dealt the Cowboys’ already slim playoff possibilities a near-fatal blow:

Maybe the most important instance? When large receiver CeeDee Lamb missed a throw in his path whereas open ultimately zone. Instantly after the incompletion the large receiver made observe of the solar in his eyes:

Proprietor Jerry Jones continues to push again on the problems the glare creates, noting that the staff is aware of the place the solar will likely be forward of time, and issue that information into their coin toss determination earlier than every dwelling recreation. “By the way in which,” Jones mentioned Sunday after the loss, “we all know the place the solar goes to be after we determine to flip the coin or not.”

Jones even went as far on Tuesday to name the problem an “benefit” for the Cowboys:

Though, provided that the Cowboys play their dwelling video games there — and subsequently face the problem not less than seven instances a season, if no more — it’s onerous to name it a bonus from the place we sit.

Nevertheless, there’s something that Dallas can do to cut back the influence of the solar’s angle. They might put curtains alongside the wall on that western finish of the stadium. Lamb, talking in regards to the situation after Sunday’s loss, was in help of the thought:

As famous, AT&T Stadium is used to host leisure occasions corresponding to live shows, and curtains are used throughout these exhibits to cut back the glare of the solar. Jon Machota of The Athletic shared a picture of these curtains again in April of 2018:

But Jones bristled on the notion of mitigating the influence of the solar’s glare when talking with the media Sunday night. “Properly, let’s simply tear the rattling stadium, construct one other one,” mentioned Jones. “You kidding me?”

Again in 2016 Bryan Trubey, the chief vp of sports activities and leisure for HKS, the Dallas-based architectural agency that designed AT&T Stadium, advised The Dallas Morning Information that the solar points don’t stem from a constructing flaw within the stadium, however had been quite part of the larger plan for the texture of the stadium, and for creating the realm round AT&T Stadium.

“That stadium was developed as a part of a grasp plan,” Trubey mentioned again in 2016. “That grasp plan will play out some day and the alignment between the stadium and the ballpark is without doubt one of the key parts to your entire grasp plan.

“So after we had been laying out the stadium one factor we needed to do was make sure that the tip zones had been utterly open. It was one of many keys to creating positive the stadium did one thing that no different stadium has ever completed earlier than or completed since. It transforms from an indoor, 80,000-seat area to what seems like an out of doors stadium.

“That’s the explanation the tip zones are open and the orientation is the way in which it’s as a result of that’s the best possible alignment to play out the ultimate grasp plan and in creating probably the most worth within the land across the stadium itself.”

That grasp plan could very nicely create probably the most worth within the land exterior AT&T Stadium.

However proper now it’s impacting the staff that performs inside AT&T Stadium.