Of all the winning locker rooms Stephen Jones has been around in his time as executive vice president of the Cowboys, he said Sunday's was like none other.
Playing a day after learning that one teammate had been killed and another was in jail, the visiting Cowboys battled back to defeat the Cincinnati Bengals 20-19. The victory kept postseason hopes alive, but a boisterous celebration did not follow.
"There was just so much emotion and certainly very contained," Jones described Monday on 105.3 The Fan [KRLD-FM]. "A lot of tears, just hard to describe."
Cowboys practice squad linebacker Jerry Brown died Saturday morning after a car driven by nose tackle Josh Brent hit a curb and flipped on an Irving road. Brown was a passenger in the vehicle that was driven by his good friend and roommate.
The two men reportedly had been partying at a Dallas nightclub before the accident. Brent was arrested on charges of intoxication manslaughter and was released after posting a $500,000 bond Sunday afternoon.
"It was obviously a bittersweet situation yesterday," Jones said. "Obviously our players, coaches, organization gave a gutsy performance, especially the players. I've never seen anything like it, walking in the locker room after a win and obviously very much bittersweet."
Jones was in Austin on Saturday, attending his son's lacrosse tournament, when he heard the news. Having to jump on a plane to Cincinnati, be with the team, have a game and return home Sunday night has given Jones little time to fully grasp the situation. But he said he found time to call his daughters, who are in college, and discuss how a person's life can change in seconds.
"We're just getting our hands around all this," Jones said. "We always want, in terms of the Dallas Cowboys and the NFL, to do the best we can for the people who make our game special, and that's our players. They're young men who are in the early stages of their adult life. We offer lots of resources and do lots of things to try to make them better people. But if you look at the country in general, there's young people all around the country that have these types of issues, young adults that are maturing and learning to make good decisions and don't always do so.
"Certainly, our players fall in that same category. But I don't think it's something that's just relegated to football. It obviously gets brought to the forefront and hopefully if there's anything that comes from this, it'll make young people check, old people check, middle-aged people check that you have to make good, sound decisions or you can certainly change lives and end lives if you don't make good decisions."
While Jones said his thoughts were centered on Brown's family, he confirmed that the Cowboys organization has reached out to Brent.
"This team's about family and he's in this family," Jones said of Brent. "Obviously heavy hearts here, but we're getting our hands around everything. Certainly as we progress we'll speak more to it. Right now we're in the early stages of this. It's really unfair to talk about much of anything right now."
