Mac Engel: By honoring Charlie Kirk, Jerry Jones violates his own take on politics

Mac Engel, Fort Worth Star-Telegram on Sep 17, 2025

Published in Football

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ARLINGTON, Texas — When the time is appropriate, the Dallas Cowboys should take a moment of silence for the following persons: Alex Jones, Megyn Kelly, Anderson Cooper, Joe Rogan, Jon Stewart, Van Jones, Bill O’ Reilly, Stephen Colbert, Rachel Maddow and Colin Kaepernick.

Never too late to squeeze one in for Rush Limbaugh. The late Charlie Kirk, God rest his soul, resides in the same category as those aforementioned names.

On Sunday afternoon, before its kickoff against the New York Giants at AT&T Stadium, the Cowboys predictably took a moment of silence to observe the recent tragic death of conservative pundit. The NFL asked the Green Bay Packers to do the same before its game on Thursday night, the day after Kirk was assassinated in Utah.

After that, the league told its franchises that a moment of silence for Kirk was up to each team’s preferences.

On Sunday, Cowboys owner/GM/president and Pro Football of Famer Jerry Jones violated his own code by allowing a moment of silence for a person who was a private citizen, a talented right-wing media pundit/”activist” with no ties to the Cowboys, or the NFL.

It would make more sense for the Cowboys to take of moment of silence for ESPN talking head Stephen A. Smith, when that day comes, than for Mr. Kirk.

Whatever you think of the man’s rhetoric, and political preferences, celebrating the murder of a person who was exercising his right to free speech in a public forum is disgusting. You don’t have to love what the man said, but show some humanity.

(For the record: Kirk didn’t do it for me, but I can recognize the man’s talents as an orator, and for his bit sitting on college campuses to challenge students. It was a great hook, even if the shtick was often humiliating and sometimes cruel. He was your standard modern age political pundit who fearlessly took “one side” for enormous financial gain.)

Jerry Jones, this is a political statement

However Jerry, and the NFL, spin this one, observing a moment for Kirk at a major sporting event, especially in this climate, is a political statement. So much for “keeping it about football.”

Why Kirk is generating the type of treatment that is normally reserved for heads of state is a mystery. Moments of silence at ballgames. Flags at half-mast. His casket was flown on Air Force Two to Arizona.

Jones has made it clear where he stands on political statements of any kind. He doesn’t. Because his priority is not alienating half of the Cowboys’ fan base. Slightly ironic for a man who in his time as the team’s GM this century has infuriated all parts of Cowboys nation.

Jerry’s logic is not about Right. Or Left. About Black. Red, White and Blue. It’s about Green.

It’s the reason he distanced himself as best he could from the Kaepernick saga, and walked the narrowest of lines to accommodate his emotional players when they all took a knee before the playing of the national anthem against the Arizona Cardinals in Phoenix on Sept. 25, 2017.

Shortly after he bought the Cowboys decades ago he made it clear his ambition is winning, and profit. Not sure which one is first or second. Publicly announcing potentially political-related preferences could threaten his net. The theory is sound.

But we reside in an era where avoiding political statements is almost as easy as living without air. You really gotta want it to avoid making a statement these days.

Jerry Jones can do what he wants

Jerry’s best efforts to remain politically neutral are just rhetoric. He’s an 82-year-old man who was raised in the South during a volatile time in this nation’s history. People who accuse him of being a racist are dumb.

He’s as much of a racist as he is a communist. He is a capitalist to the core.

He has said, “This is the time that we’re in.” He has to recognize that sentiment now more than ever.

He owns the Cowboys, and if he wants his franchise to celebrate the life of Kirk, or Joe Biden, he gets to do what he wants.

Jerry also is smart enough to know that a moment of silence for a person like Kirk is the political statement that he said he wants to avoid, but obviously doesn’t when it fits his preferences.

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