FRISCO — The best locker rooms are more than a holding tank between the dreams played out on the world’s biggest stages and the vagaries of real life. They’re not just a place to dress and decompress. Cultures are created. Bonds forged. Long after they’ve left their games behind, athletes remember what they accomplished, but they miss what they once shared.
What the Cowboys miss about Marshawn Kneeland since he took his life a week ago isn’t the pedal-to-the-metal player as much as the handsome, lovable 24-year-old he presented in the room.
Cracking jokes. Dancing. Singing.
Connecting.
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“He’d always be, like, ‘Hey, Solly, when we’re in the Super Bowl, can we get matching tattoos?’” said Solomon Thomas, a fellow defensive lineman.
“‘If our kids are born at the same time, can they grow up as best friends?’”
Hard to reconcile the image of a happy-go-lucky teammate celebrating his first NFL touchdown on Monday Night Football with the police reports from 48 hours later. His girlfriend, Catalina Mancera, told police that Kneeland had a “history of mental health issues.” In a group text, he told family and friends he couldn’t go to jail or prison, said his goodbyes and ultimately ended his life alone, less than a mile from his locker room and refuge.
His teammates haven’t fully grasped it yet.
“I was at my locker before practice,” Osa Odighizuwa said Wednesday, “and I looked up and I felt like I saw him.
“It hits you, you know what I mean?”
Odighizuwa knew Kneeland better than most Cowboys because he played alongside him on the defensive line. Yet even if he was on the other side of the ball, Dak Prescott, whose own brother committed suicide, was no less devastated by the loss of a teammate always “putting smiles on people’s faces.”
Ryan Flournoy, who, with his wife, Kalei, double-dated with Kneeland and Mancera, might have been Kneeland’s closest teammate. The wide receiver and edge rusher came in as rookies together. Flournoy was on the special teams unit last week when Sam Williams blocked a Cardinals punt, setting off a chaotic scramble.
Dallas Cowboys defensive end Marshawn Kneeland (94) celebrates after recovering a blocked punt for a touchdown during the first half of an NFL football game against the Arizona Cardinals at AT&T Stadium on Monday, Nov. 3, 2025, in Arlington.
Smiley N. Pool / Staff Photographer
“I remember racing to the ball,” Flournoy said, smiling at the memory, “and I’m seeing Marshawn run like a 4.2, and then, you know, he beat me to the ball, got the touchdown.”
His memories of Kneeland are all happy ones. His lone regret is that, as a self-professed Christian, he didn’t share his faith with him.
“I just want people to know that they’re loved and that they’re not alone,” he said when asked if he had a message. “Sometimes we can be like we have nobody to call on, and sometimes we do. It’s tough to feel alone in that moment and make that moment permanent.
“Man, just lean on your loved ones. Lean on God.”
None of the four players who spoke to the media Wednesday at The Star — Dak, Thomas, Flournoy and Donovan Ezeiruaku, a fellow edge rusher — had any idea Kneeland might be distraught enough to take his life. Then again, despite all outward indications, he wasn’t exactly an open book. His teammates didn’t even know his girlfriend was pregnant until after his death.
Solomon, whose sister, Ella, committed suicide in 2018 after years of medication for ADHD and bipolar disorder, saw nothing in Kneeland to suggest it might come to this.
“No,” he said after several seconds. “No. I mean, Marshawn was in the building smiling every day. But that’s the thing. With mental health and suicide, you just never know what someone’s going through.
“Someone could be smiling, someone could be dancing, laughing, having a great time, expressing all this joy, but, inside, they could really be fighting a battle that you never know about.”
Odighizuwa at least had a clue that Kneeland wasn’t always as happy as he seemed. He also noticed at some point that he opened up more to him than with others. Even asked him why. Kneeland told him he liked to keep his circle tight.
In those personal conversations, Odighizuwa learned that Kneeland’s passions ran as hard and fast as his feet on a football field.
“I’ve seen him get upset before, you know,” he said, “and that’s why I know Marshawn was a sensitive guy. Everything was 110% with him, even his emotions, like, when he got upset.
“He would be very upset, you know?”
His mother died unexpectedly two months before the Cowboys drafted him in the second round last year. His father is in prison. He wasn’t a glib guy. Mike McCarthy, his former head coach, remembered him as a “respectful, deep thinker.”
Greg Ellis, the former Cowboys defensive end and assistant, told The Dallas Morning News last week that Kneeland was so outgoing that it made it noticeable when he wasn’t. When Kneeland was withdrawn or sullen, Ellis would ask what was bothering him. The answer was always the same.
“I’m straight, coach,” he’d say.
“I’m good.”
Even if you’re inclined to introspection, the business of sports leaves little time for it. In football, the 24-hour rule applies, win or lose. Leave the past behind; on to what’s next. The Cowboys are practicing it this week in preparation for Monday’s game against the Raiders. They’re not moving on, they say, because to do so would suggest they’re going without the memory of their fallen teammate.
They’re simply moving forward, as all of us must do, no matter the enormity of the loss.
Marshawn Kneeland left us with no answers as to why he ended his life at 24. We may never know. But we can guess his teammates made as much impact on him as he did on them. Because in his last moments, he turned back toward The Star.
Twitter/X: @KSherringtonDMN
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If we could all talk openly about our fears, maybe the number of suicides could be reduced.
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