Pivotal test at Cowboys a homecoming for Jordyn Brooks, Jamal Adams, other Seahawks
Jaxon Smith-NJigba once had five touchdown catches in a Texas high school playoff game inside the Dallas Cowboys’ stadium..
Jordyn Brooks played in the old stadium up the road in Irving, the one with a hole in the roof reputedly so “God could watch the Cowboys play, before their new football palace opened in Arlington.
“Little League,” Brooks said of when he played inside old Texas Stadium in Irving, the Dallas Cowboys’ home before glittering AT&T Stadium they play in now.
Brooks, the Seahawks’ linebacker, was born in Dallas, with his twin sister the youngest of seven children. He was a huge fan of the Emmitt Smith, Tony Romo, then Terrell Owens Cowboys of the early 2000s. After he and his family moved to Houston and he played his state high school playoff games in that city’s NFL building, Reliant Stadium, Brooks remained a Cowboys fan. He loved them through his college days starring at Texas Tech, west in the state, in Lubbock.
“I followed them through my last year of college, until I got drafted here,” Brooks, Seattle’s first-round draft choice in 2020, said inside the Seahawks locker room in Renton this week.
Thursday night, he had more than two dozen family members and friends coming to AT&T Stadium, the Cowboys’ $1.3 billion palace that opened in 2009. They were all there to watch their guy’s Seahawks play Dallas in a pivotal game for Seattle to re-enter the NFC West race.
“It’s a blessing. Really, a blessing man,” Brooks said this week of coming home to play.
He feels even more blessed 11 months after he tore the anterior cruciate ligament in his knee and had reconstructive surgery. Remarkably, he was back on the field eight months following his surgery. That was in time to be Bobby Wagner’s partner at inside linebacker to begin this Seahawks season.
Last week against San Francisco, Brooks returned his first career interception for Seattle’s only touchdown in its Thanksgiving home loss to the 49ers.
He kept the ball from that score.
Thursday night was going to be more meaningful to him.
“If you guys saw all my family members, they know how big a Cowboys fan I’ve been growing up,” Brooks said. “So to get an opportunity to play them on Thursday night, it’s going to be special.”
It’d better be. Brooks joked he had to pay for those 25-plus tickets to this Seahawks-Cowboys game.
“Too many,” he said, smiling. “Right out of my wallet.”
Each NFL player gets a couple tickets for road games, if he puts in for them with his team. Brooks’ Seahawks teammates who aren’t from Texas, who weren’t using theirs, didn’t allot any to Brooks for Thursday night?
Brooks laughed.
“Selfish, man,” he said. “You know how it is.”
Brooks and Smith-Njigba, who’s from the Dallas suburb of Rockwall and played Texas Class 6-A playoff games in AT&T Stadium, weren’t the only Seahawks with people at Thursday night’s game. Cornerback Riq Woolen is from Fort Worth, 15 miles west of where he played Thursday. Safety Jamal Adams is from Lewisville, a half hour north of the Cowboys’ stadium.
Adams and Brooks spent this offseason rehabilitating from major injuries together at a performance center in Frisco, the same Dallas suburb that is home to the Cowboys’ sprawling training complex, The Star.
Seahawks reserve defensive tackle Myles Adams is from Arlington, where AT&T Stadium is. Defensive end Mario Edwards’ hometown is Denton. That’s 45 minutes north of where the Seahawks and Cowboys were playing Thursday night. Center Evan Brown is from Southlake, which is just went of the Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport.
So it seems Brooks’ teammates weren’t selfish.
They had their own people to find tickets for Thursday.
This story was originally published November 30, 2023 at 8:39 AM.
