Jerry Jones is sharing more details about how the Dallas Cowboys will honor Marshawn Kneeland following his sudden death.
In a new interview with Dallas-Fort Worth radio station 105.3 The Fan, the Cowboys owner and general manager, 83, broke his silence on Kneeland’s death, and shared how the team will pay tribute to the defensive end, who died on Nov. 6 at the age of 24.
Cowboys players will wear a special decal on their helmets for the remainder of the NFL season, the official Dallas Cowboys website, which shared transcripts of the local radio interview, reported on Tuesday, Nov. 11.
The decal’s final design is still under review.
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When the Cowboys take on the Las Vegas Raiders for Monday Night Football on Nov. 17, the team will also wear t-shirts honoring Kneeland during their warm-ups.
The shirts will be worn again as the Cowboys return to AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas, to play the Philadelphia Eagles on Sunday, Nov. 23. It will be the team’s first game on their home turf since Kneeland’s death, which Jones said left them “devastated.”
“Just hard to believe the content that was on the other phone in the middle of the night when we all got the news,” Jones told 105.3 The Fan.
Kneeland’s body was found with an apparent self-inflicted gunshot near his vehicle in Frisco at 1:31 a.m. on Nov. 6, three hours after he was involved in a police chase, authorities said.
Police dispatch audio obtained by PEOPLE said his family received “a group text from him saying goodbye,” just before his death.
“I do want to say publicly how much I appreciate the national news, the national recognition of him,” Jones continued in the radio interview.
He also shed light on the amount of stress and scrutiny athletes can face on a regular basis.
“Everybody evaluates everybody, it’s the nature of it. You’re under an evaluation almost from the time you get up until you go to bed,” Jones said. “And so in that area, why couldn’t we have seen maybe that there were issues that we all have dealt with in all of our lives?”
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“That’s the mental aspect of our being. No one gets more attention, no one gets any more scrutiny, no one gets any more critiquing than these guys that play this game. It’s a game that you’ve got to give up yourself when you’re hurting a little bit, or give up yourself when you’re tired, or give up yourself when you don’t feel like it… He lived that life every day,” he said.
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Jones remembered Kneeland as someone who “was very unique in his zest for life.”
“He was very unique in his passion for the game. And of course the saddest thing for someone like me is the fact that he was only 24 years old. You think about all of the time that we’re going to miss him, and he’s going to be missed by the people around him, he was just getting started.”
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