Cowboys to support Marshawn Kneeland pregnant girlfriend, unborn child ‘for the rest of their lives’

Frisco, Texas — Dallas Cowboys coach Brian Schottenheimer said Wednesday that his heart and the hearts of his players are still heavy with the death of defensive end Marshawn Neyland, and that they continue to share, laugh and cry after the loss of their teammate last week.

“We’re not moving forward, but we’re moving forward,” Schottenheimer said in his first media appearance since Niland’s death during the bye week.

“There’s no playbook, there really aren’t. So it comes late at night, but the biggest thing for me is to be strong for our football team,” their first-year coach said a day before the Cowboys resumed practice a day before the Cowboys resumed practice before their next game. “We have a great locker room, the culture we’re trying to build. We’re more connected than any of us could have imagined.”

Niland was found dead early last Thursday from an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound after leading officers on a chase when he did not stop for a traffic stop, police in Frisco said. Authorities lost sight of Niland’s car, and the 24-year-old was found dead about three hours after fleeing the scene on foot, police said.

The players were off on Wednesday, but the team was together the previous two days for meetings and breakout sessions with grief specialists who spoke with the players. There was a private candlelight vigil at team headquarters Tuesday night, and participants included Cowboys owner Jerry Jones and Schottenheimer, along with Niland’s girlfriend, his agent and his high school coach.

A memorial fund has been set up to support Niland’s pregnant friend and her unborn child “to make sure she and the baby are taken care of for the rest of their lives,” Schottenheimer said Wednesday.

The Cowboys will wear decals on their helmets for the rest of the season in memory of Kneeland, and will have special jerseys for at least the next two games. They play Monday night at the Las Vegas Raiders, then have their next game at home against Philadelphia on Nov. 23, where there will be a pregame moment of silence and a video tribute to Kneeland.

While coaches worked on game plans on Wednesday, which Schottenheimer described as a positive distraction, players will return to the practice field on Thursday.

“We have to get back to the normal routine. That’s what we’re going to do. We’re going to move forward,” Schottenheimer said. “The only benefit to playing on Monday night is that we have more time to grieve. This grieving process is far from over. There will be things that will affect us differently over the next few weeks, but we understand that the best way to honor Marshawn on the field is the way we play. That’s something we have to get a handle on, and I think the players are excited about that.”

In a story posted on the team’s website, Cowboys defensive lineman Solomon Thomas described the team’s first time back together Monday as “very emotional and very emotional.”

Thomas and quarterback Dak Prescott, both of whom had siblings who died by suicide and have organizations that support suicide awareness and prevention, addressed the team during a virtual team meeting last Thursday in the hours after Neyland’s death. Thomas’s sister Ella was the same age as Neyland.

Schottenheimer’s availability came a week after the team’s last practice, which occurred two days after Neyland scored a touchdown on a blocked punt recovery in Monday night’s loss to the Arizona Cardinals. The coach remembers seeing Neyland’s excitement after that big game.

Asked if something was missed or could have been done to prevent Niland’s death, Schottenheimer said those are normal questions.

“You try not to think about them, but when you have very open and real conversations with these people, the pain is real, the questions are real,” he said. “Whenever I talk to experts, people who deal with this all the time, they often say you’ll never know. But I’d be lying if I told you I don’t wake up in the middle of the night, or when I’m on the phone talking to one of these people, you have these thoughts. You do.”

In his first public comments about Neyland’s death, Jones said on his weekly radio show on Tuesday that everyone shared his grief.

“Everyone has to share different approaches or different things that come to mind,” Jones said. “The definition of a team is that we love each other, and we depend on each other. Everyone expects that, boy, it’s a tough game, and it takes some real mental toughness to play the game, but actually there’s a lot of love for each other out there that’s shared in fairly unique ways, and you get to know each other pretty well.”