Cowboys’ 2012 team endured teammate’s death. Even now, they’re still searching for answers

FRISCO — The Cowboys are grieving the loss of one of their own.

Defensive end Marshawn Kneeland, 24, took his life last Thursday. The reasons are unknown, but the pain of losing someone in the prime of their professional career is not. The emotions are hard to explain.

Somehow, the Cowboys must regain a mental edge and a physical prowess to play Monday night at Las Vegas.

This Cowboys team isn’t alone in playing a game after losing a teammate during the season. In 2012, linebacker Jerry Brown, a Cowboys practice squad player, was killed in a car accident 48 hours before a game at Cincinnati. Josh Brent, his teammate and best friend, was driving. Brent was arrested and later convicted of intoxication manslaughter and sentenced to 180 days in jail and 10 years’ probation.

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It’s still difficult for players from the 2012 team to talk about how they recovered from Brown’s death and finished their season. Several players declined to comment for this story.

“I don’t think we ever got through it,” said DeMarcus Ware, the Hall of Fame linebacker and one of the few people willing to discuss their feelings about losing Brown.

The Dallas Cowboys bow their heads during a moment of silence for their teammate Jerry Brown...

The Dallas Cowboys bow their heads during a moment of silence for their teammate Jerry Brown Jr. who was killed in a car accident in Irving. The Cowboys were facing the Cincinnati Bengals at Paul Brown Stadium in Cincinnati, Sunday, December 9, 2012.

Ware called Brown, 25, his little brother. He said he loved Brent, now a respected Cowboys scout.

Ware doesn’t know how that Cowboys team was able to play a game so soon after Brown’s passing, much less get through the rest of the season.

“It was just a recommitment to how in the game, there’s like ebbs and flows right, and what we started to do every day is recommitted ourselves and we treated it as someone was really watching over us,” Ware said.

On the early afternoon of Dec. 8, the Cowboys boarded the team charter for Cincinnati. Before departure, it was cleared of everyone but players and coaches.

They were informed that Brown had died and Brent was in jail.

“It was empty,” Ware said of the flight to Cincinnati. “Imagine riding on a plane and nobody is on there, but you see everybody. Everybody was on the plane and everybody was checked in as present. But it was deflating for us as we flew on that plane. It was totally silent on that plane. You could hear people coughing on that plane; you could hear people sniffing; you can hear people crying on the plane because it happened that night late. That day, that whole trip.”

When the Cowboys arrived at Cincinnati, reporters crowded in the lobby of the team hotel as players walked through, heading to their rooms.

During a defensive meeting at the team hotel, then-defensive coordinator Rob Ryan broke down and cried.

“As a coach, that was the hardest day I’ve ever had,” said Ryan, now an assistant head coach/linebackers for USC. “It was so hard. You love these players. You see a young man, his best friend is driving, and it was a horrible thing that happened. It was so hard for our players. I broke down talking to our players. It just devastates you.”

The support that the team had for each other also extended to Brent, who was picked up from jail by teammate Jay Ratliff, who didn’t travel for the game because of injury.

Ryan said defensive players Jason Hatcher and Kenyon Coleman spoke up, offering comforting words to a team in shock.

Before the game, Brown’s jersey was placed on the team’s bench. Ware doesn’t remember who gave the jersey to him, but he mentions Mike McCord, the Cowboys’ equipment manager, as a possibility.

He was in a fog.

Dallas Cowboys practice squad player, Jerry Brown Jr's, jersey as it was displayed on the...

Dallas Cowboys practice squad player, Jerry Brown Jr’s, jersey as it was displayed on the Dallas Cowboys bench during their NFL game against the Cincinnati Bengals at Paul Brown Stadium on December 9, 2012. (Michael Ainsworth/The Dallas Morning News)

Michael Ainsworth – Staff Photographer

“Because it was like I don’t know what I was doing,” he said.

So was Ryan.

“I was out of it,” Ryan said.

“You do the best you can and try to honor them. It affects you, man,” Ryan said. “I got a personal foul during the game cause I was so out of it. I wanted to fight so bad. You want to fight.”

The Cowboys won the game 20-19 on kicker Dan Bailey’s 40-yard field goal as time expired. The winning drive was set up by linebacker Anthony Spencer, who recorded a third-down sack with nearly four minutes to play.

Before the play, Spencer asked Ryan if he could rush quarterback Andy Dalton instead of dropping back into coverage.

“The players thought more clearly than I did,” Ryan said. “I was so hurt and I’ve never dealt with that, calling a game with tears in your eyes. That’s how it was.”

The Cowboys ran off the field with Hatcher holding up Brown’s No. 53 jersey.

It was just the beginning. A few days later, the team held a private memorial service at Oak Cliff Bible Fellowship. They had to continue playing games.

Ware said the team prayed every chance it got. In the shower. In the meeting rooms. In the locker rooms. On the field.

Dallas won its next game and finished the season 8-8, missing the postseason.

They never stopped loving on Brent and supporting Brown’s family.

“He was Josh’s roommate. They were like brothers, and those things happened,” Ware said. “We didn’t say, ‘Josh, it’s your fault.’ We didn’t do that. We corralled around Josh and Josh became a beacon of belief for us because we knew how much that he was mourning for his brother. We know how much he meant to Josh. We knew how much, also, what he meant to us, and so now every single day we started to learn to mourn with purpose. It wasn’t like we were sad, we were more driven. We need to have more Christ on our team. It was Christ. We did a lot of praying.”

Ware and Ryan have no real answers as to how this Cowboys team can move along. Coach Brian Schottenheimer has adopted the approach of “we don’t move on, we move forward.”

The fact that Kneeland’s death happened during the bye week gave the Cowboys time to grieve in private in comparison to the 2012 team, which had no choice but to play a game and talk about their feelings so soon.

“There was not a time, really the whole season, where we like decompressed,” Ware said. “Like imagine this, you on the plane and you know where somebody sits. You’re in the meeting room and I know he’s not there or in a huddle or on special teams or on the field on the bench when he sits beside you, and he asks you the same question every single game. And you don’t get that question anymore.”

A week after Kneeland’s death, defensive tackle Osa Odighizuwa said he was in the locker room and thought he saw him.

“It’s just crazy. It’s still something that I’m trying to wrap my head around,” Odighizuwa said. “I was at my locker before practice and I looked up and I felt like I saw him, and ‘Ah nah, that’s someone else.’ It hits you, you know what I mean? Just moments like that. It’s still sinking in, to be honest. It still doesn’t feel all the way real.”

The season moves on. Life does, too. Feelings are raw, still, about the loss of someone you care about.

Ryan believes being around each other will help this Cowboys team. The Cowboys held video meetings the day of Kneeland’s death. There have been grief counselors, large and small meetings, and support for everybody who needs it.

“It’s so depressing,” Ryan said. “It weighs you down because it’s real. Hell, it’s real and you have to face it. I know Jerry [Jones] will do an unbelievable job [with support]. It’s just devastating for someone so young to lose their life … Hell, you’re going to go out there and do the best you can and compete. But I can tell you he will be on everybody’s mind [during the game] and after that.”

Twitter/X: @calvinwatkins

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