Cowboys’ Jerry Jones: There was ‘no risk at all’ to play vs. Texans after metal piece fell from stadium roof

ARLINGTON, Texas — The roof is literally falling on the Dallas Cowboys. A piece of the AT&T Stadium roof fell onto the field prior to the Cowboys’ Monday night showdown against the Houston Texans that ended in a 34-10 defeat. 

Specifically, a large piece of metal fell from the ceiling roughly two hours prior to kickoff as the retractable roof was opening. Fortunately, no one was injured. 

“You had wind gusts a lot all day long, and apparently did a lot a damage and then when we tried to open it up, the winds got underneath the roof at that time,” Cowboys owner and general manager Jerry Jones said postgame. “Everybody agreed that it did some damage, but you check around Dallas had wind gusts all afternoon. … We were aware of it when we were opening the doors a few hours before the game and had a plan that minute to not open the roof.”

“We can confirm a piece of metal came loose and fell on the field (with some additional small debris) while the roof was in the process of opening,” the Cowboys said in a statement pregame. “There were no injuries. It is being reviewed further, and a decision regarding the ability to re-open the roof safely will be made when possible.” 

Jones claimed the issue is indeed fixable and that he hadn’t yet heard from anyone who had to run out of the way of any debris from the roof pieces falling. 

“It’s fixable, but we didn’t have, it wasn’t the situation or time or otherwise to do it tonight,” Jones said. “There was no risk at all to anyone on the field playing once we shut the roof. … we opened and shut the door [the roof] before any fans or anybody was in there. I think it’s four hours before. The reason they do is to make sure everything is working and to avoid those kinds of risks if there’s any fans or anybody in there. So that’s what happened, and it worked. They told us to basically, probably don’t open the door [the roof]. The piece apparently was loose from the heavy winds that were out here all day. … We open and shut those roofs, doors. We do that several times throughout the week before we got to a point where we’re actually going to use them with any fans or anybody around are impacted by it.”

There was also another loose piece of the roof stuck up high that didn’t fall to the field.

“They [the NFL] wouldn’t have done this game or started this game had there been any risk at all,” Jones said. “The NFL wouldn’t, but I wouldn’t if there was any risk at all. There was no risk at all when we started this game.” 

This was the first time the Cowboys had tried to open the roof for a game since Week 8 of the 2022 season against the Chicago Bears. That game was a 1 p.m. ET kickoff. 

The Cowboys’ home stadium continues to make headlines for the wrong reasons. In Week 10, Cowboys All-Pro receiver CeeDee Lamb dropped a sure touchdown pass after losing the ball in the sun. Despite that and other prior issues with sunlight interfering with games, Jones doesn’t plan to block the sun during games anytime soon. 

“My biggest thought when we were building it was, ‘Don’t have it look like it’s not outdoors. Make it look like it’s outdoors,’” said Jones, whose team is enduring a rocky 3-6 season. “That stadium was built to feel like it’s outdoors when you’re indoors, and it was built to have sunlight coming in.”