Solomon Thomas Shares Advice for Teammates After Marshawn Kneeland’s Death

Dallas Cowboys defensive tackle Solomon Thomas, who lost his sister to suicide in 2018, gave a moving answer about how he’s helping his teammates work through their grief before the first game since the death of Marshawn Kneeland.

During a media availability on Thursday, Nov. 13, reporters asked Thomas, 30, how he and his teammates “can escape” their grief as they prepare for their Monday Night Football game against the Las Vegas Raiders on Nov. 17, according to beat reporter Joseph Hoyt.

Thomas thoughtfully explained why he and the other Cowboys shouldn’t try to push their grief away, but instead, use those raw emotions on the field.

“First off, you don’t escape grief,” Thomas began. “Grief never leaves you. Grief is forever with you. And as soon as you feel like you’re on top of grief, grief will hit you on the head as hard as a rock.”

Thomas, who created his foundation The Defensive Line in 2021 in honor of his sister Ella, said “the first thing” he’s telling his teammates “is to honor themselves throughout this process [and] don’t try to run away from the grief.”

“Because the moment you try and run away from it, the bigger it gets, and the more that will affect your performance,” Thomas continued. He said he advised his teammates to cry “if you have to cry” adding that he’d offer to “hold” them as they cried.

“If you have to go outside during meetings, walk around, call your mom, do that,” he continued. “That’s whats important right now: feel that grief, feel that pain. Cry, be angry, be confused, because that’s whats real.”

As the team is looking forward to a “very emotional game on Monday,” just two days after head coach Brian Schottenheimer revealed that Kneeland’s girlfriend is pregnant with their first child, Thomas advised that they’re “going to feel the grief” because there’s “going to be an absence of spirit that’s missing that’s going to hurt a lot of people” when the Cowboys take the field without Kneeland.

Realizing Kneeland’s absence when they suit up in Las Vegas “is going to be really hard,” said Thomas, “but in that process…we can still move forward in a way to honor Marshawn by playing our best game and playing as hard as we can.”

Thomas said he believes the most important part of processing grief is “to not run away from” it. “Bring the grief with you, because those emotions, you can use them for good. You can use them in the memory of Marshawn and how he used to play.”

Another Cowboys defensive player, OSA Odighizuwa, opened up about the loss of his teammate during media availability on Thursday, as seen in a post by reporter Clarence Hill Jr.

“It’s just crazy,” said Odighizuwa, adding that he’s “still trying to wrap my head around” the situation.

“I was at my locker before practice and I looked up and I felt like I saw him, and ‘Ah nah, that’s someone else.’ It hits you, you know what I mean?,” Odighizuwa said. “Just moments like that. It’s still sinking in, to be honest. It still doesn’t feel all the way real.”

One day after Kneeland’s death on Nov. 6, Cowboys quarterback Dak Prescott said, “This is a pain you don’t wish upon anybody. You wish none of us had to go through this. You wish Marshawn didn’t have to go through what he went through.”

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