Cowboys’ George Pickens appears to lose ball in the glare of sunny AT&T Stadium

The quirks of AT&T Stadium may have played an early part in Thursday’s Thanksgiving matchup between the Cowboys and Chiefs.

With a 3:30 kickoff, it was expected that the sun shining through the windows of the Cowboys’ home stadium could impact the vision of receivers or defensive backs, and unfortunately for the Cowboys it bit the home team first.

In the second quarter with the Cowboys down 14-7 but driving into Chiefs territory, Dak Prescott dropped back to pass on a first and 10, scrambled briefly and then threw a pass directly into one of the sunny patches of AT&T Stadium. His intended receiver, George Pickens, appeared to lose the ball in the glare before it fell incomplete.

Dallas would have to settle for a field goal three plays later.

Cowboys

This is a longstanding issue for Cowboys early-evening home games, apparently even for players like Pickens who wear heavily tinted visors.

It has to do with the east-west orientation of the stadium and the way the sun shines through the windows at the east end of the stadium. In 2016, former Dallas Morning News’ writer David Moore broke down what an architectural expert had to say about AT&T Stadium’s sometimes-troublesome design.

It’s been widely criticized in the past, even by an opponent of the Cowboys in Thursday’s matchup, Travis Kelce. In 2024 he and brother Jason Kelce ripped into the stadium’s layout in their podcast, calling the sun issues “ridiculous.”

“You’d think they’d put shades up or something,” Jason Kelce said at the time.

Jerry Jones has claimed before that the glare offers a sort of homefield advantage to the Cowboys, but it didn’t serve as such on Thursday.

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