Diehard Cowboys fans stampede for standing room, brave arctic cold at Packers game

ARLINGTON — The air was so bitterly cold Sunday afternoon, you’d think the Dallas Cowboys were playing their wild card playoff game against the Green Bay Packers in Wisconsin, not in Arlington.

An arctic front brought freezing temperatures to Arlington and the rest of the Dallas-Fort Worth area, which had highs in the 20s, lows in the teens and a wind chill near zero.

Lucky for the Cowboys (and the Packers), AT&T Stadium has a roof. But hundreds of fans seeking optimum spots in the standing room only areas braved the bone-chilling temperatures before they could relish the warmth inside.

Not so lucky for the Cowboys and their passionate fans, Dallas fell 48-32 to Green Bay in a disappointing first-round playoff exit Sunday.

The Packers marched out to a 27-7 halftime lead in front of the 93,799 fans in attendance. Out of the locker room, the Cowboys could not overcome the deficit.

“It was embarrassing,” said Cowboys fan Joe Maldonado.

Standing room only tickets grant fans access to decks throughout AT&T Stadium where they can watch the game, mostly from behind each end zone. Fans with SRO tickets do not have physical seats or a seat location, so it’s first come, first serve.

This arrangement is available at all Cowboys home games, but most times fans don’t wait in conditions quite as cold as Sunday’s.

“I thought my hand was going to fall off,” said Florene Ware, a lifelong Cowboys fan who waited outside with husband Bob Ware. “It was freezing.”

But Maldonado, who hails from Fort Worth, said ahead of the game that waiting in the dangerous temperatures was worth it.

“[I] support them boys,” he said.

Once the doors to the standing room only areas opened two hours before kickoff, a mass of fans swarmed from the AT&T Plaza and into the concourse at JerryWorld. In hindsight, the outcome of the contest made the pregame stampede into the stadium seem in vain.

It’s not necessarily the safest process, said Maldonado, who has participated in the SRO flood before.

“It’s crazy,” he said. “[It’s] people just running. People falling. … Shoes flying everywhere. People getting trampled.”

The mad rush is driven by a sense of scarcity.

Because space is so limited and isn’t staggered like physical seats in the stadium, many fans in the SRO area don’t have ideal views — especially those on the shorter side who would probably be better off watching the videoboard than trying to peer over a sea of people.

And it’s not guaranteed that if someone leaves their spot, it will be there once they return.

To improve their chances of a good view of the field, some of the most devoted members of the Cowboys faithful — and the sprinkling of Packers fans in attendance — made sure to be on the frontlines of the stampede.

Dallas Cowboys and Green Bay Packers fans brave cold weather outside AT&T Stadium

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For anyone wondering what kind of money fans forked out for the SRO tickets, it depended on when they purchased them.

Brian Moore didn’t plan on attending the game after he saw SRO tickets selling for $160 and thought it was too much for the value. While waiting in the cold was uncomfortable, Moore said the wintery conditions ended up working to his benefit.

“Prices came down because of the cold weather,” said Moore, who as a child lived near Thousand Oaks, Calif., where the Cowboys used to train. “It went down to like 50 bucks.”

And that was enough to send Moore to AT&T Stadium. He said he was pretty satisfied with his area on one of the upper decks.

Like Maldonado, this was not Moore’s first time purchasing an SRO ticket. He said the craziest rushes he’s been in happened before Cowboys playoff games against the Seattle Seahawks and the San Francisco 49ers.

His strategy for participating in the stampede is to arrive early and get in as fast as possible.

“It’s just a mad rush,” Moore said.

Maldonado said ahead of the game that his strategy was to run up the stairs and into the Dr Pepper section, so that he could get his best view of the Cowboys taking on the Packers.

But things didn’t go as Maldonado hoped. Ever the loyal fan, he stayed for the whole game.

“Maybe next year will be our year,” he said.