The Cowboys decided to open the roof to AT&T Stadium days before Monday night’s game against the Texans. What they hadn’t factored in was the cold front that blew through Arlington on Monday morning.
The area saw wind gusts of 20 mph Monday afternoon and stronger earlier in the day.
When stadium operators began opening the roof more than two hours before game time, a piece of metal fell from the roof onto the sideline. No one was injured.
“I’ll tell you right now what you had: You had heavy winds in this area during the day and apparently right about the time when we opened it as well as before the winds had compromised part of the roof, and then we opened it, well then it had that piece, the wind took it and got under it,” Cowboys owner Jerry Jones said after the game. “Rest assured, all of that kind of stuff is done out of the way of any fan or customer or anybody like that.”
The roof had not been open for a game in more than two years — since a game against the Bears on Oct. 30, 2022 — and the team intended to have the retractable end-zone doors open for last week’s game against the Eagles, but they failed to completely open, Todd Archer of ESPN reports.
Monday’s game ended up being played with the roof closed.
“Wind apparently did a little damage and then when we tried to open it up, winds got underneath the roof at that time,” Jones said. “Everybody agreed that it did some damage. But check around, Dallas had wind gusts all afternoon. They call them wind something, wind bursts or something like that. That’s the kind of thing that ended up causing that damage, apparent damage, and we were aware of it when we were opening the [roof] a few hours before the game and had planned the minute we saw that not to open the roof.”
Another piece of loose metal stuck in a catwalk had to be bolted down before the game was allowed to start on time.
“They wouldn’t have done this game, or started this game, had there been any risk at all,” Jones said. “Not only the NFL wouldn’t, but I wouldn’t if there was any risk at all. And there was no risk at all when we started the game.”
Jones said the roof is “fixable.”
AT&T Stadium opened in 2009 and has had the roof open and the retractable end-zone doors closed only seven times.
On May 2, 2009, the Cowboys’ indoor practice facility at their old training facility in Irving collapsed. Wind shear, just shy of hurricane strength, ripped through the bubble during a rookie minicamp. Eleven people were injured.
