The 2024 NFL draft has nearly arrived, and Cowboys fans everywhere are honing in on their favorite prospects they want their beloved team to select. Since not all good college players become good professional players, projection is the name of the game. Scouts must assess gameplay, identify traits, gauge competition and at the end of the day, pray for some good old-fashioned luck when making their reports.
For teams like the Cowboys who are evaluating offensive tackle prospects, this is all abundantly true in their search for the next great left tackle. Discussions revolve around balance, reach, technique, length, strength and athleticism. Who the prospect faced and how well they did against quality competition also factor into discussions. And as most draftniks can attest, even the side of the line that OT played carries sway in conversations.
But should it?
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To many, which side of the line a prospect played in college can be a deal breaker. They’ve likely heard for years about how difficult switching from one side to the other can be and want to avoid it in a prospect if at all possible.
Looking back through the annals of history, the best pass rushers in the NFL often played off the right EDGE, thus facing off against the opponent’s LT. That factoid serves as yet another reminder the LT and RT are different and in no way interchangeable like others want to believe.
While the argument for LT-RT segregation has its merits, it’s also a bit outdated.
There’s no denying a switch from the right to the left is a difficult one to make. Likened to learning to write with a different hand, moving from the starboard side to the port side requires a complete flip in muscle memory. Footwork, hand play, stance and kick slide all change.
Yet, for as difficult as it is to flip sides, time and practice can overcome. Flipping back and forth midseason is a difficult thing to do, even for a professional swing tackle, but dedicating to a new side in the offseason is a perfectly manageable adjustment for highly touted prospect to make.
Even the quality of competition being faced loses some of its clout when looked at more closely. Defenses are no longer automatically positioning their best pass rushers on the right side of the defense. Just as many elite rushers play left EDGE than play right EDGE these days. Look no further than Micah Parsons in Dallas, who took 313 pass rushing snaps on the left, more than twice as many than he took on the right (per PFF tracking).
With how many great EDGEs play on the (defense's) left side, I don't see why so many are still clinging to the idea that a prospect is a LT or RT only from a skill set POV. If you can play tackle, you can play tackle imo. There's not much of a difference between the two anymore…
— John Owning (@JohnOwning) April 16, 2024
Looking at the top-10 pass rushers in the NFL last season based on PFF’s PRP metric which measures pass rush efficiency, half rushed predominantly from the right side while half rushed predominantly from the left side. It doesn’t matter where the best pass protector is positioned because good pass rushers come from both sides now.
Teams can also roll assistance to either side. There’s no rule that says the right side must always be the strong side and get all the tight end help. Offenses still want their best protection on the quarterback’s blindside since any breaks in protection from there bring potentially disastrous consequences, but LT prospects don’t need special left side traits like some still suggest.
A handful of first round OT prospects like J.C. Latham, Taliese Fuaga and Amarius Mims have only played RT in college, garnering suspicion whether or not they can play LT in the NFL. With proper coaching and practice reps, there’s really no reason to think they can’t make the switch. The LT and RT positions aren’t that different and aside from the adjustment in muscle memory there’s no reason any of them can’t make the move.
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