The Dallas Cowboys you're accustomed to seeing on Turkey Day will look a little different Thursday.
Big D won't wear its traditional throwback jerseys and helmets for the holiday tilt with the Oakland Raiders at AT&T Stadium, per the Cowboys' official site.
The reason? Safety.
The NFL has banned teams from wearing alternate helmets to comply with the league's emphasis on concussion awareness. That means Dallas won't dress in the blue-star-laden white helmets they typically wear on Thanksgiving Day. Instead, for the first time since playing in the Cotton Bowl, the Cowboys will don their regular blue jerseys for the annual game.
"I think everything is about putting players' safety first and foremost," team vice president Stephen Jones said Tuesday. "I don't know if it's a given that moving one helmet to another is an issue, but we haven't proven that it's not, either."
Said Jones: "We're always going to err on the side of safety. It's going to give us a new look this year, but sometimes there's nothing wrong with that, either. We'll continue to look at that. It doesn't mean you won't see alternative helmets in the future. It's just we want to make sure right now that we always err on the side of players' safety until we've really dotted our i's and crossed our t's."
The Cowboys, admirably, are all about player safety. If they're all about the mental health of the fan base, we'd advise the Dallas defense -- which hasn't allowed fewer than 300 yards in a game since mid-October -- to take care of business before carving the Turducken.
The latest "Around The League Podcast" previewed all three of the big Thanksgiving games on the schedule.
