Death of Cowboys' Marshawn Kneeland reminds that we never know all the struggles of athletes we watch
Content warning: This story contains references to suicide. If you or someone you know is having thoughts of suicide and needs support now, call or text 988 or chat with the Suicide & Crisis Lifeline at 988lifeline.org.
When the news came Thursday morning, the consensus among NFL fans who knew who Marshawn Kneeland could have been distilled to a single word.
What?
Kneeland had died at the age of 24.
In these rare and unbelievable instances, what follows is an embarrassing but human calculation. Kneeland was an NFL player for the Dallas Cowboys. He had been a promising second-round draft pick in 2024 and was still reaching for his future. And just a few days earlier, we’d seen him score a euphoric touchdown off a blocked punt in a prime-time game. In a short career, it was his greatest moment, achieved in front of an audience of millions.
Now, he was gone. Eventually, we’d come to understand his departure came apparently by his own hand, according to police.
Deaths of young NFL players never make sense when they touch our ears for the first time. Kneeland, Dwayne Haskins, Khyree Jackson, Jaylon Ferguson — all in their mid-20s, all gone at a time in their lives that seemed undeniably inexplicable. And all in the last three-plus years. Each leaving us to arrive at a conclusion before we understand the circumstances of their passing: More often than not, this is not going to fit any natural order of how a life comes to an end. They were simply too young, too close to their dreams, with too much to live for.
And that’s where the blind spot exists. The one where we never really know what is going on in the lives of the athletes we are watching, writing about, speaking with, cheering for and getting to know for the first time. What we see is what we are presented with — but in every life, there are closed doors that we can’t see through. We don’t always know what mental struggles an athlete might be dealing with. We don’t know the risks they’re prepared to take in their youth. Or how they’re balancing the weight of their dream and the life that comes with it, which can often seem like having to hold up the sky for both themselves and all the people who helped them get there.
On Thursday, that was one of the conversations I ended up having with a few other executives and coaches around the league. Sorting through the how and why and the reality that we can’t know everything. Realizing there’s a sliding scale of physical trauma and mental health that can end careers but also lives. Sometimes, the physical and mental intersect and it becomes unsustainable. Others, the balance of the problem is shielded from our view and we never understand what happened. But always, we’re stunned when it takes away someone at a time that doesn’t make sense.
All of these players don’t die, either. Indianapolis Colts quarterback Andrew Luck retired at a time that was unthinkable in a career that might have had a Hall of Fame trajectory. Then we listened to a 29-year-old tell the world that his body was broken and his spirit had gone with it. If you had even an ounce of empathy, you understood. Just a few months ago, Detroit Lions center Frank Ragnow was one of the best offensive linemen in the NFL and seemingly on the doorstep of a significant contract extension that would have delivered him tens of millions of dollars. Instead, like Luck before him, he retired at 29 and told us what we hadn’t known: His football life was insurmountable physical pain, but his future was his family. And again, with empathy came understanding.
The point of all of this is to recognize that we don’t know what we can’t see. Sometimes that ends in a retirement that leaves us stunned. And sometimes it takes us somewhere much, much worse — as it did with Kneeland on Thursday morning. Heartbroken for his family, which had already lost his mother unexpectedly in early 2024. Anguished for a Dallas Cowboys franchise that will return from an off week Monday, only to absorb the reality that Kneeland’s locker, with the everyday trappings of a football life, will lack Marshawn sitting next to it.
Something that resonated in all of this, when I spent some time talking to people around the league was this: In some ways, it has become harder for people inside NFL franchises to know and continually connect with each other. Technology has simplified so many things that used to be complicated. But that simplification has made it easier to know less about your teammate, your neighbor in the cubicle down the aisle, your road scout who is isolated for much of the calendar year. It’s something I have noticed in 25 years of covering the NFL: How downtime for players is filled with phones and earbuds; how meetings don’t necessitate being in the same state, let alone the same room; how cafeterias have gotten a little quieter; how scouting and film sessions have been players locked into tablets and a set of headphones instead of a room full of people experiencing it as a group rather that individual bubbles moving at their own pace.
Those who have been in the NFL ranks long enough see it, too. Some of the cross-talk of doing things together has been replaced by the cold efficiency of technological advancements. Players, coaches, scouts and team employees are more connected than ever by tech — and they’re also more disconnected than ever by the convenience of it.
On Thursday, Nebraska head coach Matt Rhule came as close as anyone I’ve seen to putting words to this reality. Rhule was an NFL head coach with the Carolina Panthers. He has been a college football coach at multiple stops. He has seen the toll that an NFL life inflicts on players. He has seen the cost that college players pay to chase their dreams. One of those players, when Rhule was a head coach at Temple, took his life. His name was Adrian Robinson, and Rhule has spoken often about the regret he has lived with for not reaching out when he felt he had a chance to potentially make a difference in the end of Robinson’s life.
When Rhule held his news conference Thursday, he took the time to convey roughly 750 words about Marshawn Kneeland’s death. They had the gravity of 750,000 words. We have imbedded the entirety of those in this story with the video from Rhule’s talk with the media.
Nebraska’s Matt Rhule with a few minutes on mental health that’s worth your time. It’s making the rounds and deserves some virality. The part about asking his players to take their headphones off at lunch and talk to each other hits home. pic.twitter.com/I54X3sKtGd
— Charles Robinson (@CharlesRobinson) November 6, 2025
For my part, I’ll just stick with six words that have stuck with me. Six words about coming to understand that each of us is going through our own struggle in some way, and recognizing it is a matter of wanting to understand it or know it. Or maybe just offer an ear to hear it.
As Rhule put it, “You really got to unearth it.”
In Kneeland taking his life — and for so many who have died before the outside world understood their struggle — we’re left to unearth it too late. All of those deaths, and our lack of understanding how they could have happened until it was too late to prevent them … that is the whole of this tragedy.