Heading into a critical game against a division rival, the Cowboys e-mailed their season-ticket holders, encouraging them to be loud when the New York Giants had the football on Sunday at Cowboys Stadium.
The message included that there would be a new third-down graphic posted on the enormous big screen in the middle of the field.
There wasn't much to cheer about in the first half. The Giants jumped out to a 23-0 lead early in the second quarter. Although they responded with 24 unanswered points, the Cowboys lost 29-24.
But the question deserves to be asked: Do fans need to be told when to cheer? Cowboys owner and general manager Jerry Jones was asked that Tuesday on his weekly radio show. Jones pointed out that the Giants were 3-of-15 on third down, suggesting that the graphic on the big screen was a success.
"First of all, it's commonplace in the NFL to talk about creating noise at your stadium," Jones said on 105.3 The Fan [KRLD-FM]. "As a matter of fact, a major discussion went on for two or three meetings as late as last year that teams could encourage more crowd noise when the opposing team had the ball.
"Our fans were outstanding the other day. Now, when you are down three and a half scores or you're not winning, then I think everybody understands why you don't have a very loud crowd that constrains or compromises the visiting team when they've got the ball. That's the point of it. … We were outstanding the other day, so it worked. We'll continue to do that. We'll continue to use our No. 1 game enhancement, which is our center-hung board. We'll continue to use that. We'll continue to try and create a loud, loud atmosphere when the other team has the ball. … That's in the rules.
"They anticipate in the NFL, teams going to work to create that advantage at home. One thing that makes all that talk about home field advantage go away, of course is the very obvious and the very simplistic, you need to win games when you're there at home. That's what we need to do. We're really proud of the enhancement we have out there for our crowd. Obviously our center-hung board is the star of the show and really makes an experience that nobody else has."
