Cowboys training camp has been filled with all kinds of new sights thus far in 2020. Red jerseys on the quarterbacks. Cooling tents. Team meetings in the Ford Center bowl. Coaches and staff wearing masks. Last names on practice jerseys. Dak Prescott wearing a visor.
Yes, this year’s camp has provided a feast for the eyes, causing Cowboys fans everywhere to refresh their timelines repeatedly as they wait for the latest round of photos to be sent out into the ether after every practice session. But by all accounts, the sense going through the biggest adjustment in Frisco these days may be that of hearing.
New coach Mike McCarthy has all but scrapped the popular tradition of piping music onto the field during practice. He claims to be using the eerie silence as a way to prep the team for the conditions they’ll likely encounter in Week 1 when they face the Rams in an empty SoFi Stadium in Los Angeles.
There’s a reason the Cowboys haven’t been playing much music in practice. Mike McCarthy: “It looks like we’re gonna be playing our first game without fans. What I’ve always done is you try to keep your training environment as close to the game situation as possible.”
— Jon Machota (@jonmachota) August 24, 2020
“I think there’s a place for music,” McCarthy told reporters Monday morning before team activities. “I think even more so than any year that I’ve coached in this league, this is probably a year for not very much music.”
The Rams announced last month that their new stadium would be “at limited or no capacity” in 2020 due to the COVID-19 crisis. Several other stadiums on the Cowboys’ travel schedule have already said fans will not be in attendance for any games this season.
Jerry Jones has stated emphatically that Cowboys home games, however, will be played before live fans at AT&T Stadium. The number of fans that could be admitted on gameday, however, has not yet been determined.
So perhaps music will return to the team’s practices after Week 1. The Cowboys’ 2020 home opener will take place in Week 2- September 20- versus Atlanta.
“The influx of music for me,” McCarthy explained, “in the practices that I’ve had in the past, there’s a purpose for it. So when the offense is playing on the road, we’ll have music during their periods for communication challenge and things like that. We play music during the TV timeouts; there’s what, two or three of those a practice? I think music’s great, but I think it needs to be at the appropriate time.”
As for what tunes actually get cued up when the time is appropriate? That may turn out to be another big-time adjustment for many of the Cowboys players.
Does Mike McCarthy pick the music played at Cowboys practices?
“Can’t you tell? That’s my iPod, or whatever they call it. My playlist.” https://t.co/W2a6gN4Qch
— Jon Machota (@jonmachota) August 24, 2020
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