The Dallas Cowboys are mourning the loss of Marshawn Kneeland, and Jerry Jones is planning a special way to honor the late Cowboys defensive end.
The Cowboys owner and general manager opened up about Kneeland’s death for the first time on his weekly radio appearance on KRLD on Tuesday.
Kneeland, of course, died of what was reported as a self-inflicted gunshot wound after a police chase in Dallas on Thursday. The 24-year-old had spent two seasons in Dallas, after it chose him in the second round of the 2024 NFL Draft.
The Cowboys were on a bye this weekend but returned to practice Tuesday ahead of their upcoming game against the Raiders on Monday night at Allegiant Stadium.
Jones had a one-word answer when asked about his reaction to the Kneeland news.
“Devastated,” Jones said. “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 said the Cowboys will honor Kneeland by wearing t-shirts for warmups for their next two games, on the road against the Las Vegas Raiders and at home against the Philadelphia Eagles. He also said they will don a helmet decal acknowledging him as well, while noting the Cowboys players and staff will have to grapple with their grief the rest of the year.
“We all are having to share the sorrow, all are having to share the different ways or different things that come through your mind,” Jones said. “It’s not light that as a teammate, Marshawn touched everybody in many different ways.
“The very definition of team is we love each other, we rely on each other. That’s the ethos of what a team is about. Everybody expects that this is a rough game, it takes some real mental toughness to play the game, but in fact there’s a lot of love for each other there that is shared in unique ways, and you get to know each other pretty good.”
Losing a teammate midseason is going to have an impact on the Cowboys. Luckily, Jones said Dallas has an asset at dealing with this in coach Brian Schottenheimer.
“Schotty does have a realism about him because he simply was born into it in terms of being around anything unique about a football team,” Jones said. “I think we all have unfettered feelings about the people we love, people we work with.”
Kneeland became the latest Cowboys player to lose his life midseason — one of a handful since Jones took over the team in 1989. But Jones also acknowledged he is soul searching amid this tragedy.
“This is just a time when you acknowledge that there’s no answers,” Jones said. “It makes you want to live life to the fullest, it makes you want to look for the very best in what we have for each other, and in some way make some sense out of these times.”
An honest appraisal of the situation at Bears slot cornerback came from Ben Johnson following Sunday’s win when asked about C.J. Gardner-Johnson’s play.
Or was it an extremely lightly veiled message about their secondary personnel? Or both?
Gardner-Johnson produced two more sacks and the game-changing forced fumble against the Giants while Kyler Gordon missed his third game on injured reserve. He is eligible to come off of IR after four games, if his injured groin has healed.
“I haven’t been around Kyler a whole lot yet,” Johnson said. “He’s been dinged up, so I can’t speak to that.”
Ouch. It couldn’t have been a good thing to hear for Gordon, who got a contract extension at $13 million a year prior to this season.
“But, listen, I love what C.J. brings to the table right now. You feel him out there,” Ben Johnson said. “He’s a football player. He loves to be competing. He finds himself around the ball quite a bit. I think we all appreciate that.”
Johnson’s knack for big plays haven’t quite been equaled in pass coverage. Turnovers are a great deodorizer. Three sacks don’t hurt. Gardner-Johnson’s passer rating against when targeted isn’t impressive at 109.5 in the two games but Gordon’s was a disastrous 147.1.
Then again, you’re dealing with such a small sample size, but there’s the problem.
Ben Johnson really hasn’t been around Gordon much. He has played fewer snaps on defense this year (81) than Gardner-Johnson (112), and Gardner-Johnson started the year in Houston, then was on Baltimore’s practice squad.
A coach can only go by what they’re seeing on the field. Defensive coordinator Dennis Allen has been around Gardner-Johnson a lot more than he has been able to familiarize himself with the play of Gordon.
What happens when Gordon returns?
They’d like to know he truly is healthy before this happens as he was out four games to start the season.
Picking up sacks on slot blitzes shouldn’t be marginalized. Nor is that a slot cornerback’s primary function. Getting the job done in coverage is the goal, and the analytics say neither did that really well this year. It isn’t an easy job when Allen likes to blitz so much, but what the Bears do know about both players is they’re versatile.
Gardner-Johnson’s best years might have been with the Eagles playing safety rather than playing slot cornerback for Johnson in New Orleans. He has played outside cornerback a little. Gordon, in 2022 as a rookie and even as recently as 2023, played some on the outside.
Gordon was probably better on the outside than Gardner-Johnson based on the amount of reps both took outside, but it’s difficult to determine.
If the Bears put Gordon outside in place of Nahshon Wright, it could strengthen the coverage. In Wright’s defense, this has been his first real opportunity to play longer term as a starter. In his first four seasons, he got in for exactly half as many total plays (269) on defense as he has had in this season alone (538).
Wright hasn’t been terrible, although Pro Football Focus doesn’t think much of his play because they grade him 90th of 109 NFL cornerbacks. He’s had a few really poor games mixed in with average play, but his passer rating against is a solid 87.2 according to Stathead/Pro Football Reference. PFF puts it at a worse level of 96.1, but still not a problem.
Either way, the Bears can’t be elated with his play. Otherwise, they wouldn’t have displayed trade interest in New Orleans’ Alontae Taylor, as NFL Network’s Ian Rapoport reported. Nor would they have brought Asante Samuel Jr. in for a look before he signed with Pittsburgh.
Whether they would be better with Gordon moving out to right cornerback remains to be seen. When he was playing outside in the past, it was usually on the defense’s left side before they had Tyrique Stevenson.
It’s a mix they’ll need to get a better feel for when Gordon returns. It is going to happen eventually, possibly as soon as after the Vikings game, when they’re preparing to face Aaron Rodgers.
Ultimately, the deciding factor for who plays slot cornerback could be the Bears pass rush and not their secondary. With three sacks in two weeks, they might be better off keeping Gardner-Johnson in the slot and blitzing because Montez Sweat can use the help. The other pass rushers aren’t providing much.