The late-afternoon sun has been haunting AT&T Stadium for over a decade, and it’s that time of year again. Since the Cowboys moved into their Arlington palace back in 2009, players and fans alike have battled one of the venue’s most notorious features. Sunlight blasting through the 120-foot-tall sliding glass doors.

Everyone inside the NFL knows it’s an issue. The Cowboys owner, Jerry Jones, has long maintained that the stadium’s design is “iconic” and that the sunlight gives the venue a “majestic” look. Players, however, would probably use a few different words to describe it. And now ESPN’s Todd Archer revealed on X that the roof will stay closed, but the massive end-zone doors will remain open—a setup where Dallas has gone 10–3 historically. The question now: will that help or just make things worse?

This Sunday vs. the Commanders marks the team’s first late-afternoon home game of the season, and the conversation around the glare is already heating up again. Cowboys receivers over the years have a long, frustrating history with that sunbeam cutting across the field. Back in 2017, Dez Bryant and Brice Butler both blamed missed catches against the Chiefs on the glare.

It’s a pattern that just keeps repeating. Last season’s 34–6 loss to the Eagles reignited the debate after CeeDee Lamb missed what looked like an easy touchdown — simply because he lost the ball in the sun. “I couldn’t see the ball,” Lamb admitted after the game, adding that he’d be “one thousand percent” in favor of adding curtains during games.

But when Jerry Jones was asked about it, he brushed off the idea entirely. Curtains? Not happening. Instead, Jones doubled down—saying the sun was actually a good thing for Dallas. “That really goes under the category of home-field advantage,” Jones told reporters. “It should be an advantage to the home team, so I don’t want to adjust it for one reason because it is an advantage to us. That’s our advantage. It has been an advantage for us to know where the sun is. I don’t want to change that.”

It was a bold take, especially when that “advantage” cost his team six points. Each time, the conversation circled back to the same question: why hasn’t Jerry Jones fixed it? Well, not anymore.

Travis Kelce’s call for change to the growing frustration

Even Travis Kelce had joined the growing list of NFL stars pushing back against Jones’ stubborn “pro-sun” stance. On an episode of New Heights last year, Kelce didn’t hold back, calling the glare that pours into one of the end zones “f—ing ridiculous.” He even joked that the massive glass panes make the sun “bigger and brighter than it’s ever f—ing been.”

Fans have always been quick to point out that AT&T Stadium has used curtains before—for concerts, the NCAA men’s basketball tournament, and even WrestleMania 32. In other words, Jones clearly had the means to fix it; he didn’t want to.

The irony? Last season, after the Eagles game, the Cowboys had to roll out anti-reflective material during Mike McCarthy’s press conference. Reason? The glare was blinding even indoors.

As for Kelce, his frustration came from first-hand experience. He’s only played once at AT&T Stadium. A Week 9 late-afternoon game back in 2017—and even then, the sun played a factor. Kelce still put up a solid stat line with seven catches for 73 yards and a touchdown in a 28–17 loss to Dallas, but his lasting memory of the stadium wasn’t the score—it was that blazing wall of light cutting through the field.

And as this weekend’s kickoff inches closer, one thing’s for sure: the debate over Jerry Jones’ “majestic” sunlight now seems to be over.

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