Jerry Jones loves the look of the late-afternoon sun shining through the west-facing windows of AT&T Stadium, even if it’s brighter than the mother ship in Close Encounters.
After being required by FIFA to close the curtains for one of the World Cup matches played there (the others weren’t impacted by the setting sun), Jones is at least thinking about making a change.
“Well, do you know something?” Jones told Fox 4. “Thinking about it and doing something about it are two different things. . . . 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 that 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.”
Tinting hasn’t been one of the past possibilities. It’s either let the sun shine in, or pull the curtains over the windows.
Until then, it will be one of the factors that the teams must consider when picking which goal to defend and when calling plays at a time when players will be potentially distracted by the rays.
The easy fix would have been to build the stadium so that it ran north and south, like the vast majority of football fields do. Jones wanted the sun to enhance the overall look of the stadium — especially on TV. But if it impacts games, and if his team can’t consistently turn that into an advantage, there’s no reason to dismiss a middle ground that will create desirable “effects” without becoming an issue for the players.
