AP

The Cowboys are flying into New York a day early, so coach Jason Garrett can take his team to the site of the World Trade Center for a little reflection before their game with the Giants.

Cowboys owner Jerry Jones mentioned the early departure (teams generally fly in the day before games), during his weekly radio show on 105.3 The Fan.

“Jason [Garrett] is really into those kinds of things for the team,” Jones said, via Todd Archer of ESPN.com. “We’re going to go to Ground Zero and go to the observation tower and really experience that in the downtown area of New York and get a feel for what really heroes were like during those trying times.”

Garrett has tried to mix in some life lessons along with his football coaching and team bonding, having previously visited with Navy SEALs and Marines during a trip to San Diego. But the visit to New York is also deeper for him.

He was a backup quarterback with the Giants on Sept. 11, 2001, and was living on the Upper West Side of Manhattan when the attacks happened, and was among the Giants players who went to the site to pass out water and greet first responders in the days after.

“It’s very different than the real-life situations going on, but hopefully in some small way the Giants, the Yankees and the Jets and all the teams that were playing at that time gave those people of that community who were so affected by this event an opportunity to get away from it for three hours,” Garrett said in 2011, before the Cowboys played the Jets on the 10-year anniversary of 9/11. “And we tried to take that responsibility very seriously. We met with the people from the NYPD and different fire departments in the city and just tried to in some small way support them. I think people all around that community did that.”

He can’t make the experience as personal as it was for him, but it’s a good step by Garrett to mix in a bit of history and perspective, at a time when the condition of Dez Bryant’s ankle has been the biggest thing on anyone’s mind there.