The plan was for both Smiths to work the left side of the Cowboys offensive line in 2022. Most imagined Tyron, the perennial All-Pro, would remain at left tackle, while Tyler, the promising rookie, would get a season-long immersion course alongside him at guard.
Obviously, things changed before Week 1. And now with Tyron ready to re-take the field, things may change again as the team enters the home stretch of the season four months later.
And the answer may be one that nobody saw coming.
Tyron Smith looks to make his season debut on Sunday in Jacksonville, but there is growing belief that he may be filling in at right tackle for part of the time.
“I think he’s all business,” Cowboys coach Mike McCarthy said of the 32-year-old on Thursday. “He’s excited. You can see really the past month in his rehab that he’s really pushed to be back, to get back healthy. I know he’s excited to get going.”
But could he get going at a spot he hasn’t played since he was a 20-year-old fresh out of USC in 2011?
Last week showed that stranger things have happened.
The loss of tackle Terence Steele during Sunday’s win over Houston caused some emergency tweaks on the right side of the Dallas offensive front. Josh Ball, a fourth-round pick in 2021 who then spent the year on injured reserve, initially stepped in with all of 11 offensive snaps on his résumé.
Ball was manhandled on back-to-back fourth-quarter plays by the Texans’ Ogbonnia Okoronkwo. On the first, he forced a Dak Prescott fumble, but Ball managed to recover it. On the next snap, Okoronkwo disrupted Prescott’s arm motion during a pass attempt, and the throw was intercepted deep in Dallas territory.
When the Cowboys regained possession, Ball was on the sideline.
“He had a great game except for two plays,” McCarthy said on Monday, “but unfortunately, those plays count. They were big plays for our opponent. I think he’s been making a lot of progress throughout the year. I think he’s really settled down and is doing a good job of playing consistently with his technique.”
In his place and with the game in the balance, the Cowboys turned to 19th-year veteran Jason Peters. A left tackle by trade, the nine-time Pro Bowler had been brought to Dallas to be a swing tackle, perhaps backing up either Smith as needed on the left side.
He ended up swinging in at right tackle, a position he had not played since 2005.
Peters made the gargantuan mental flip-flop on the fly and did just enough on the right side to help the Dallas offense march 98 yards to a game-winning score.
But leaving the 40-year-old Peters at an unfamiliar position for an entire game is obviously less than ideal.
“The last couple of weeks we tried to get him in the rotation so that in the event things happen like this, it isn’t foreign to him as far as playing a higher number of reps,” Cowboys offensive coordinator Kellen Moore explained earlier in the week. “He got 28 [percent of the offense’s snaps] this week. So I think that’s a number that’s good. We’ll see how much more we can go from there and continue to build it. Other guys can play as well, probably, and we’ll see where it takes us.”
Ball was assumed to be the other guy Moore was referring to, with word coming from The Star that the veteran Peters would likely play most snaps at right tackle, with the Marshall product subbing for “non-pressured situations.”
A rotation at tackle is already a novel approach, at least for McCarthy, who admits he’d never done it before.
“Never have. This is new,” the coach told media members. “I just can’t say enough about the whole room. It could effect everybody.”
Well, maybe not everybody. Right guard Zack Martin famously filled in at right tackle due to the injuries that plagued the Dallas offensive line in 2020. He made it pretty clear then that he would not be interested in doing that again.
But sure enough, as another gameday approaches, a new possibility has bubbled up.
Why not leave Tyler Smith where he’s been and work Tyron Smith into the mix at right tackle? He started every game there in 2011 and was even named to the All-Rookie Team.
McCarthy would neither confirm nor deny that it was being considered.
“We really focus on where do the practice reps go. That’s what we’re doing this week, and you play to that. So we’ve been rolling Jason in pretty much here the past six, seven weeks, so that part won’t change. Josh Ball obviously got his opportunity because of the injury to Terence, so we’ll just continue to follow the trail of where the practice reps go.”
Moore had also been non-committal when the idea of Tyron seeing time at right tackle was mentioned during a Q&A session Monday.
“I think we’re really trying to see where he’s at as he’s coming back to to his availability.”
Availability. That’s what it all comes down to.
The Cowboys have three outstanding left tackles who will be available, for one left tackle spot. But two of them- the ones with 17 Pro Bowls between them- have also played right tackle before, even if sparingly and long ago. And the only other right tackle in the conversation is being talked about for “non-pressured situations.”
It wasn’t the plan. It’s not even Plan B. But in a so-crazy-it-just-might-work kind of way, a Peters-Tyron-Ball platoon may just be the best plan the Cowboys have at their disposal.
[listicle id=707094]
[listicle id=707112]
[lawrence-newsletter]