The Dallas Cowboys aren't about to throwback safety.
The NFL won't let them.
USA TODAY Sports is reporting that the Cowboys won't don their traditional throwback uniforms when they play the Oakland Raiders on Thanksgiving Day.
The reason? The uniforms come with a different helmet, which this year is in violation of a new safety guideline the NFL implemented as recommended by its Head, Neck and Spine Committee.
According to USA TODAY Sports, the gist of the guideline is that once a player gets a helmet to fit properly, that player should wear only that helmet throughout the season.
"I think everything is about putting players' safety first and foremost," Cowboys vice president Stephen Jones told NFL.com on Tuesday. "I don't know if it's a given that moving one helmet to another is an issue, but we haven't proven that it's not, either.
"We're always going to err on the side of safety. It's going to give us a new look this year, but sometimes there's nothing wrong with that, either. We'll continue to look at that. It doesn't mean you won't see alternative helmets in the future. It's just we want to make sure right now that we always err on the side of players' safety until we've really dotted our i's and crossed our t's."
The Cowboys will wear their regular blue jerseys for the annual game.
The Tampa Bay Buccaneers ran into the same problem earlier in the season when they decided against wearing their "creamsicle" throwback uniforms because of the helmet issue.
When the Buccaneers decided not to use their throwback uniforms, a reader sent a comment to the USA TODAY Sports article, asking why the team didn't just paint its everyday helmets to match the throwback uniform helmets and then paint them back.
That question remains unanswered.
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