Some interesting news emerged after Sunday’s Dallas Cowboys game when Brian Schottenheimer noted that Tyler Smith was going to play left tackle for the final two games of the season.
This is significant to say the least and requires a bit of a TL;DR on how we got here:
- Dallas drafted Tyler Smith out of Tulsa in the first round of the 2022 NFL Draft
- The intent at that point was for him to play left guard
- Tyron Smith was hurt before the season started and he was needed outside
- He miraculously and heroically played very well at tackle for most of that season
- When Tyron returned Tyler slid back to guard
- The last few years have seen him turn into one of the best guards in the NFL
- One game into this season the Cowboys and Smith agreed on an extension that made him the highest-paid guard in NFL history
Tyler’s deal was a four-year, $96M extension that has an AAV of $24M. It feels safe to say that just about every Cowboys fan believed it was well-earned and that he was the foundational block that the future version of the offensive line was being built upon, especially following Zack Martin’s retirement after last season.
To be clear all of this, what we are getting to that is, started because Smith played left tackle during last week’s game against the Los Angeles Chargers and the reason that he did so was that Dallas was down at the position and wanted to protect Dak Prescott as well as possible. Dak is the team’s quarterback and inherently their most important player, plus the Cowboys obviously have a serious financial investment in him.
A big reason for the raised eyebrows surrounding Tyler playing left tackle has been that Cowboys leadership has suggested that Smith could play left tackle even beyond the remainder of this season.
Nothing about the future is known and there is obviously a lot of time before any sort of decision will be made regarding where Smith plays, but there have been some questions raised here.
We can start by asking what this will mean for Tyler Guyton in the future. Perhaps he is destined to play the right side in a world where the team moves on from Terence Steele. Understanding that left guard is a question in that hypothetical, there is still an argument that this is the best overall configuration in terms of positions and their importance.
It would appear on some level that the Cowboys were somewhat prepared for this reality when they negotiated the Smith deal in September, though. The team has approached contract extensions in a unique manner to say the least over the last few seasons which has led to a lack of trust from some. In the aftermath of this Tyler Smith story, there was a sector of people wondering if the Cowboys were perhaps trying to save on him by moving him to tackle after paying him guard money as there is a difference between the positions (tackles cost more). That is a hypothetical claim, but again the team has lost some benefit of the doubt and the internet is the internet generally speaking.
During a discussion on the internet, on X specifically, the mothership’s Nick Eatman responded to a conversation on this subject between Brad Sham and Bob Sturm. Eatman noted that it is his understanding that there are details in Smith’s deal to allot for a potential move to tackle.
From a timeline perspective, the Cowboys saw Tyler Guyton get injured well before Tyler Smith got his new deal, but there was no public indication of an intent to move Smith to tackle while Guyton was out. If there was, wouldn’t they have done it at some point before Week 16 in a game where they knew they could be mathematically eliminated from the playoffs (which they were) before it even kicked off? This is one of the questions that all of this raises as noted.
This is going to be an interesting story to follow over the course of the offseason and will to some degree likely impact free agency and the NFL Draft.
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