On the field last week, the Dallas Cowboys suffered their eighth loss of the season. Off the field, the organization suffered a far more profound loss, the kind that the players and coaches won’t be able to just shake off and put behind them with the next film session or team walk-through.
Markus Paul, the Cowboys’ strength and conditioning coordinator, suffered a medical emergency at the team facility on Tuesday; the day’s practice was quickly canceled. Paul passed away Wednesday at the age of 54. He was clearly on the minds of his players and fellow coaches during their 41-16 loss at the hands of Washington on Thursday. Afterward, they tried to put into words the emotions of the previous days.
“We kind of have our football life and then we have our real life. It’s like we live two lives,” wideout Amari Cooper said in his postgame remarks. “What happened over the past week, it was tragic, and we kind of had to cope with it and intertwine those two lives and still try to focus as much as we can on football while dealing with something in our personal lives.”
“Markus was a special man,” head coach Mike McCarthy shared after the Thanksgiving Day game. “He’s definitely someone that, when I think of him, he obviously had a lot of success in his professional life. But if you really look at the mark of a man, it’s more about significance over success. I can’t tell you the impact that he made on our football team- really, the whole organization. Obviously, I’d only been working with Markus since January. but it was clearly evident throughout these last 48 hours, 72 hours what he means to everybody… His memory and his impact has touched a lot of people and will always live with us.”
The team met Wednesday night for a gathering that linebacker Jaylon Smith classified as both emotional and celebratory.
“Just getting an opportunity to celebrate his life, his impact, everything that he instilled in each individual that he touched or met,” Smith said of the meeting to honor Paul.
Paul touched the lives of many in the sport, dating back over two decades as a strength and conditioning coach with the Saints, Patriots, Jets, Giants, and Cowboys. Prior to that, Paul played five seasons for the Bears and Buccaneers.
Legendary Cowboys fullback Daryl Johnston was Paul’s college teammate at Syracuse.
“People ask me sometimes, ‘Who hit you the hardest in your football career?’ Three guys: One, Ronnie Lott. Two, Chuck Cecil. Those wouldn’t surprise anybody. But three, Markus Paul,” Johnston told Peter King of Sports Illustrated. “Back in the eighties, spring football was pretty serious. You got padded up. Practices were like games. One practice, I ran the ball through the middle, kind of got stood up there, and here comes Markus. Wham! Sort of smiled and said, ‘I got you good.’ It was the kind of hit where my whole circuitboard shut down, burner down my right side. What a hit.
“When I heard what happened, I was fortunate enough to be able to go to the hospital to see Markus. I just really wanted to say goodbye. I’m so happy I was able to do that. He looked so peaceful. Like Markus was.”
The cause of Paul’s death has yet to be revealed, although team owner Jerry Jones said in a Friday interview with Dallas radio station 105.3 The Fan that he was told Paul had suffered a stroke.
That it apparently happened inside team headquarters, in front of others on the team, only adds to the tragedy for those who witnessed it.
McCarthy said he entered the room just moments after Paul’s medical emergency occurred, but declined to elaborate on the details.
“Respectfully, I don’t want to talk about it,” the coach said on a Friday conference call. “I was there. Most of us were there. That’s why, like I said earlier, this is so very personal. For all of us. Not only just because how we feel about Markus, but also how it happened and where it happened and when it happened. As far as canceling everything [on Tuesday], frankly, to me, it was a no-brainer. My instinct was I wanted everybody with family. I wanted everybody to be where they felt they needed to be.”
After the sudden scrapping of Tuesday’s session, the team reassembled Wednesday to try to prepare for an important divisional game just 24 hours later.
The team knelt in prayer prior to the start of Thursday’s contest. They wore helmet decals bearing his initials. The stadium observed a moment of silence during pregame. Several players, including linebacker Leighton Vander Esch, were clearly battling very raw emotions just moments before kickoff.
“I’ll say this, just being truly honest here: I had no idea how we were going to play. And that’s a feeling you never have as a coach,” McCarthy admitted. “You go through weeks of preparation, you line up, and you usually have a feel for where the matchups and the challenges are going to be, try to anticipate them and so forth. We started the game and had adversity, some injured players, and our guys just kept battling. They gave everything they had. And I appreciate that.”
Now the team must find a way to move forward. They’ve been granted the gift of a few extra days to do that, as a result of Thursday night’s Ravens/Steelers game that was postponed long enough to also push the Cowboys’ upcoming trip to Baltimore.
As The Athletic‘s Jon Machota points out: “Had Dallas’ game at Baltimore remained as originally scheduled, the Cowboys would’ve practiced over the weekend. Instead, players had Saturday and Sunday off. The extra time to be around family and friends is probably a good thing for a group dealing with the loss of a friend and someone they worked closely with on a daily basis.”
“To lose somebody so suddenly like that, that you see every day, is never easy,” center Joe Looney told media members after Thursday’s game. “Markus loved football. He loved ball, loved his family, had his faith. It’s definitely tough. But he made a lot of people around here better men.”
And even in death, Paul made others better, as his daughter shared via social media.
Now, his Cowboys family will look to put into the practice some of the lessons Paul taught them about taking care of themselves and one another.
“It was definitely an emotional week for everyone,” running back Ezekiel Elliott told reporters Thursday night. “Markus had such a big role in all of our lives. Every day, he’s the one leading the stretch. So we’ll line up for practice, getting ready to stretch, and you get that reminder that he’s not here with us anymore. It’s definitely tough. We’ve got to lean on each other and help each other get through this tough time.”
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