IRVING, Texas – The Cowboys won't be wearing a traditional throwback jersey for Thanksgiving this year.
But it still won't look like any normal home game at AT&T Stadium.
For the first time since the Cotton Bowl days, the Cowboys will wear their regular blue jersey at home in Thursday's game with the Raiders.
In compliance with NFL rules, teams are not allowed to wear an alternate helmet because of the league's enhanced awareness on concussions. So the throwback jerseys with the white helmets as we've seen in recent years was not an option for the Cowboys.
However, sticking with the Thanksgiving Day theme of wearing a different look, the Cowboys have decided to wear their blue jerseys for this game. Oakland, of course, will wear its regular white away uniform.
Cowboys vice president Stephen Jones, who is also on the NFL's Competition Committee, said the league is being proactive with this stance, but it doesn't mean the throwback or alternative uniforms are gone forever. [embedded_ad]
"I think everything is about putting players' safety first and foremost," Jones said during Tuesday's practice. "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. But 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."
In 2009, the Raiders wore their white jersey for the Thanksgiving Day game while the Cowboys wore their blue throwback jersey and white helmets. The Cowboys won the game 24-7 in the first Turkey Day game played at what is now named AT&T Stadium. Since the days of former GM Tex Schramm, whose vision was to give the home fans a different look each week, the Cowboys have traditionally worn white at home. Schramm didn't like the idea that fans would say the home blue jerseys vs. a white road team every Sunday, so Philadelphia's green or the Cardinals' red or the Giants' blue would mix up the color pattern on a weekly basis.
