IRVING, Texas (AP) -Camera flashes twinkled nonstop for several minutes. A singer-less national anthem turned into a giant sing-a-long. And nearly all members of the Ring of Honor were back under the hole in the roof.
Even before kickoff Saturday night, the Dallas Cowboys’ finale at Texas Stadium was far more than just another home game.
Around town all week, the buildup for this game was more like an NFC championship – which is exactly what the Cowboys envisioned being their Texas Stadium finale. But with Dallas only able to get into the playoffs as a wild card, this 313th game here almost certainly was the last.
It sure was treated like it, all the way down to a 50-minute postgame ceremony that was to include about 100 former players. Security was beefed up, too, to make sure fans didn’t try taking home souvenirs they weren’t entitled to; $240,000 worth of stuff already has been auctioned off.
e fans were allowed into the seats, team owner Jerry Jones and his family posed for dozens of photos on the midfield star logo.
Once the crowd started having their commemorative tickets ripped, many stopped to buy commemorative programs with thick, shiny silver covers, or dropped $35 on T-shirts and $70 on sweatshirts bearing the words “Farewell to Texas Stadium” and a logo showing the iconic building and the years 1971 and 2008 separated by a blue star.
TV screens all over the stadium kept flashing the typographically challenged but widely understood message, “Its time to defend one last time.”
At the start of pregame ceremonies, so many camera flashes went off that it looked like a gathering of fireflies. The flickering never stopped, either, as folks paraded out of the inflated helmet at the end of the tunnel from the Cowboys’ locker room – first the cheerleaders, then guys carrying the team’s flag, followed by the offense and then the defense, all of them coming out together instead of being introduced individually.
Players also came out with a new patch on their jerseys, the same “Farewell to Texas Stadium” logo as on the T-shirts and sweatshirts.
with cheers louder than for any headliner who’s performed the anthem here all season. Then, up went hundreds of blue and white balloons, another nod to an outdated tradition.
When Dallas captains went to midfield for the coin toss, Hall of Fame running backs Emmitt Smith and Tony Dorsett joined them. (For the record, the Cowboys won it.)
Then, after Dallas went up 7-0 early in the first quarter, three more of the 14 living members of the team’s Ring of Honor were introduced: Mel Renfro (wearing his own No. 20 jersey), Cliff Harris and Rayfield Wright. Lee Roy Jordan, Chuck Howley, Randy White and Don Perkins were introduced during second-quarter breaks.
Ring of Honor members Michael Irvin and Roger Staubach were on the field before kickoff. Bob Lilly also was expected. The other living Ring members are Troy Aikman and Don Meredith.
The only way Dallas can host another game is if it snags the NFC’s fifth seed and gets to the conference championship game against the sixth seed.
The Cowboys came in 213-99 in regular-season and postseason games here since 1971. Baltimore was playing here for the first time and trying to join the Oakland-Los Angeles Raiders (3-0) as the only NFL teams never to lose here.
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