Tag: Jaylon Smith

Cowboys coach calls Jaylon Smith’s release ‘a big-picture roster move’

Mike McCarthy claims he’s not sending a message with the veteran’s release; the club was unable to find a trade partner for Smith. | From @ToddBrock24f7

It wasn’t just one thing. It was lots of things. And in the end, it was just time to part ways.

That’s the gist of the explanation given by Cowboys head coach Mike McCarthy on Wednesday after the release of linebacker Jaylon Smith. A team captain for the Week 4 game versus Carolina on Sunday, the former Pro Bowler found himself out of a job by Tuesday night.

Many observers and fans alike have long suspected that Smith’s time in Dallas was running out, that his seemingly diminishing level of play and decreasing usage no longer warranted the huge payday he was earning from the club. But those looking for a single concrete reason to explain the timing of the cut aren’t getting it. At least not from McCarthy.

“There’s obviously multiple factors that go into these decisions. That was definitely the case with Jaylon,” the coach said to open his Wednesday press conference. “Had a chance to visit with him last night. Very thankful for my time with him here. We talked about his experience here in Dallas. We just felt that this was the best time to make this decision. Obviously, there’s not really ever a good time for these type of decisions. But basically, just with all of the factors involved is why the decision was made yesterday.”

When pressed to outline those factors, McCarthy declined.

“I’m not going to get into all of the specifics of it. I mean, this is a big-picture roster move. As far as us moving forward, we just felt that this was the right time.”

But the Cowboys were trying to unload Smith as early as last season, according to several insiders.

“They didn’t find any trade partners,” Jane Slater told NFL Network. After an offseason wrist surgery triggered a $7.2 million injury guarantee, the Cowboys “decided to keep him around, see how these younger players started to play, while continuing to find suitors for him. I had one team tell me that those trade talks, Cowboys picking up the phone, were really aggressive in the last two weeks.”

Smith played just 40% of the team’s defensive snaps in Week 4’s matchup with Carolina. With rookie Micah Parsons playing so exceptionally (and not needing to moonlight at defensive end), Keanu Neal about to return to action, and Leighton Vander Esch back in form, Smith’s usage seemed primed to take a further drop in the coming weeks.

“I think it’s clear now after four games how we’re playing,” McCarthy said, “and we just felt, with all the factors involved, that this is the decision that we needed to make.”

But the Dallas brass apparently tried one last time to make Smith’s contract more palatable.

“It’s my understanding the Cowboys then tried to go to his camp,” Slater reported, “and see if they would waive this injury-clause guarantee in his contract that guarantees him $9.2 million next year if he has another clean-up surgery or if he happens to get hurt. I was told he ‘refused that.'”

And that made Smith a liability to a team that was already prepared to move on without him. (And has been doing so on the field.) By releasing him now, the Cowboys eliminate the risk of being on the hook for any more money than they already owe Smith. And they also ensure that there is no distraction moving forward, the kind that could come from a prominent team leader riding the bench or simply being declared inactive.

“You’re evaluating your roster all the time,” McCarthy explained. “We had an extensive personnel meeting yesterday, and we talked through every single player on the roster. Frankly, that’s a normal process I’m sure every team goes through. Once again, it was a big-picture roster move, and we felt this was the time to do it.”

Smith is expected to draw interest from several NFL squads, especially since he’ll now come at the league-minimum price. (The Cowboys are responsible for his 2021 salary.) As Ian Rapoport told The Rich Eisen Show, “The Packers have a need there, possibly. Washington just lost [Jon] Bostic for the season; they have a need. The Cleveland Browns have had some injuries. The Las Vegas Raiders have had some issues at linebacker.”

McCarthy believes Smith could still make an impact on the field in another uniform.

“Jaylon’s an excellent football player,” he told reporters. “Like I said, there’s other factors involved in this decision. He played good football for us. In my time with him, he totally bought into the new direction of the program, everything we’ve done. The guy practices every single day, plays his ass off. I have nothing but respect for him.”

But now that respect will come from the opposite sideline. The Clear-Eye View Era has gone dark in Dallas, and that will open the door for someone else to swipe some playing time on the Cowboys defense.

“If you’re on the 53, and, really, if you’re on the practice squad also- with the exempt opportunity- everybody’s available. I think we’ve proven that. We’ve shown that. We want to have competition throughout the week. I think that’s very important, particularly for as young as we are. I want these players to see that they have an opportunity to continue to grow and hope to fight to have that opportunity on the 48. How that shakes out, and I mean this, is really up to the players. It’s up to all the young players, all the veterans. It’s up to them to show and compete and create the opportunity for themselves.”

McCarthy says the sudden release of one of its highest-profile stars was not intended to send a message to the rest of the Cowboys roster. But it has certainly delivered one just the same.

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Cowboys release former Notre Dame great

What is your favorite memory of Jaylon Smith at Notre Dame?

Jaylon Smith will go down as one of the all-time “what if’s” in football.

What if the 2015 Butkus Award winner didn’t suffer a devastating knee injury against Ohio State in the 2016 Fiesta Bowl?  Would he have been a top-five pick as many projected him to be?

And just how great of career may Smith have had if it wasn’t for that injury that likely stirred many draft-eligible players to sit out of their bowl games in the years that have followed?

Smith was released Tuesday by the Dallas Cowboys, the same team that drafted him in the second round back in 2016.  According to Jori Esptein, Smith had played 56% of Cowboys defensive snaps this season, the most of any full-time Cowboys linebacker.

In full, Smith played all 56 games for the Cowboys since returning from injury in 2017, recording nine sacks and forcing six fumbles during his time.

Where he winds up remains to be seen but for a player who signed a five-year, $64 million contract extension in 2019 it’s hard to imagine him not getting picked up sooner than later.

And one more “what if” while we’re here.

What if literally anyone other than Brian VanGorder was Notre Dame’s defensive coordinator in 2015?  Just how good could the Irish and Smith both been?

Related:

Current NFL receiver shares why he de-commited from Notre Dame

40 Notre Dame players on NFL rosters to start 2021

Notre Dame releases depth chart for Virginia Tech game

Stop overthinking things and start Drew Pyne

Reading between the lines it sure seems like Pyne will start at Virginia Tech

Should Jaylon Smith, Jeremy Chinn be LB options for Panthers?

How will the Panthers look to replace LB Shaq Thompson? Will they move Jeremy Chinn to the middle? Could they sign Jaylon Smith? Or might it be a lower-profile fix?

As we still await for the official word from the Carolina Panthers, the uncertainty around linebacker Shaq Thompson’s injury continues to loom. But what we do know, or at least feel, is that his roaring start to the 2021 season will come to a temporary halt.

Joseph Person of The Athletic reported on Monday that the team expects to be without their longest-tenured defender and leading tackler for “some time.” And while it’ll likely only be on a week-by-week basis, Thompson’s presumed absence adds to an already bleak list of sidelined Panthers.

So, how do general manager Scott Fitterer, head coach Matt Rhule and the rest of the staff plan on going forward? Even if it’s for a game or two, there’s a spot in the middle of that defense that needs to be tended to—by creativity or resourcefulness.

The latter of those two options could see the front office tapping a little bit into that $21 million worth of cap space for the freshly-released Jaylon Smith. According to ESPN’s Adam Schefter, in a report which was later confirmed by multiple outlets, the Dallas Cowboys will be parting ways with the 26-year-old on Wednesday.

Smith’s sudden release has come as a result of his declining play and, of course, the money that accompanied his presence. The Cowboys, who have decided their defense is better off without the former second-round pick, took care of their chicken by sparring themselves of his guaranteed $9.2 million base salary in 2022.

Would the Panthers, however, want a player with such a noted injury history at a position that requires top-end athleticism? That was a trait that Smith once had, but is now instead having trouble compensating for through the rest of his performance.

K.D. Drummond of Cowboys Wire describes Smith’s situation as a deteriorating one, as he’s seen his share of snaps decrease from 97.8 percent in 2020 to 61.9 percent through four games this year.

“Smith’s ability to turn and run with opposing players has digressed each season, and he’s often taken himself out of plays by shooting the wrong gaps and making incorrect reads on run plays,” Drummond writes. “Yes, his tackle stats have been high, but all tackles aren’t created equal. They all bring a play to a halt, but tackles two yards past the line of scrimmage and eight yards past the line of scrimmage all end up in the same stat bucket, but with drastically different impacts.”

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In the grand scheme of the rest of the 2021 campaign, the Panthers wouldn’t necessarily be asking Smith to magically regain his prime form. That won’t happen, either way, as he wouldn’t be a long-term replacement for Thompson.

He could, however, help provide a brief bandaid to the weakside wound and slip back as a depth piece upon Thompson’s return. His decreased role has come with some positive results, as Smith has not been credited with a missed tackle all season and has also earned himself high grades in tackling (84.3) and in coverage (82.2) from Pro Football Focus.

If Carolina is willing to take on a risk, both on the field and a little from inside their pockets, Smith could be there waiting for the call.

If not, perhaps they reach back for that creativity in the form of their human Swiss Army knife. Will they, though, concede on their plans of keeping Jeremy Chinn as a safety and use him more as a linebacker for the time being?

Well, with defensive coordinator Phil Snow, that’s not at all out of the question. In fact, they’ve already sort of reneged on that plan for Chinn.

Despite their early intentions of unleashing and developing him as a free safety, he’s played the vast majority of his snaps (112) out of the box thus far. Hell, Sean Chandler is even out-snapping Chinn at free safety over these first four games, 82 to 54.

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While that could be an indicator of multiple factors, as the team has scrambled to man the slot, it undoubtedly shows the flexibility Snow and the Panthers are willing to stretch throughout their unit. So if he’s already playing around the middle, why not just station him as a backer for the next few outings?

To be frank, they may not have the remaining personnel for it. With fellow starting safety Juston Burris and cornerbacks Jaycee Horn and Myles Hartsfield currently out, moving Chinn away from the secondary would further deplete that area of the field.

Would you be comfortable giving the vast chunk of burn at those free and strong safety spots to Chandler and Sam Franklin? Although they are two solid talents that’ve earned the trust of the coaching staff, are they proven enough as a tandem to hold it down?

For now, all of these questions may have a more tame answer. Maybe we’re just looking at a timeshare for the “some time” Thompson will be missing.

Maybe Chinn does get some looks as a linebacker. But just some.

Maybe recent call-up Kamal Martin carries over his starting experience from Green Bay to help fill the void. Maybe we even see Frankie Luvu a bit more, even if he’s normally used an outside pass rusher rather than a playmaking weakside guy.

Whatever path the Panthers choose, another change in direction won’t, unfortunately, be a new move for them here in 2021. The standard is the standard and the next man will be up.

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9 Questions: Why did the Cowboys released Jaylon Smith now of all times?

QTNA: How much had he been playing? What are the financial ramifications? What was the injury g’tee? Why didn’t they release him in the offseason? All these questions and many more are answered here. | From @KDDrummondNFL

The move certainly shocked plenty of people. The Dallas Cowboys have released Jaylon Smith, once seen as the leader of their defense, just four games into the 2021 season. Smith certainly was no longer the central figure for the team, but still his release has raised many questions as to the timing of it all and what happens next.

Smith finished his Cowboys career having played in 68 games. He totaled 516 tackles including 20 for loss with 9 career sacks. Smith had two interceptions forced six fumbles and recovered five, including a scintillating return touchdown against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers a few years ago.

How much and how well had he been playing this season? What are the financial ramifications of his release? What was the deal with his injury guarantee? Why didn’t the Cowboys release him during the offseason? Why didn’t they try to trade him to another team? Why did so many fans dislike someone with his back story? Who is going to play in his place? What happens next for Smith? What about all those No. 9 jerseys? All these are answered below.

Breaking: Cowboys release LB Jaylon Smith

The Cowboys have parted ways with linebacker Jaylon Smith.

The Dallas Cowboys have been flying high this season, jumping out to a 3-1 record through the first month of the season. All appeared well how, despite several warts on defense, the club was turning in outstanding performances. Well it appears the club and the front office isn’t afraid to rock the boat from a promising start, or rather they are willing to claim addition by subtraction.

As first reported by ESPN’s Adam Schefter and since confirmed by several outlets, the Cowboys have released linebacker Jaylon Smith.

Smith, a 2016 second-round pick, has played a lesser role in this season after leading the team in tackles the last two years. After the club drafted Micah Parsons in the first round and then double-dipped with Jabril Cox in the fourth round, the changeover at the linebacker position was well underway. Those moves followed the signing of free agent Keanu Neal, a former safety with new defensive coordinator Dan Quinn.

Smith has seen his snap counts decrease and on Sunday he played just 40% of defensive snaps (28). Smith has just 18 tackles in four games after averaging just under 10 a game in 2020. Under Quinn, the Cowboys have liked to run with multiple safeties to combat opponent’s passing games, and Smith’s ability to cover and pursue has worsened each season since his peak in 2018.

Dallas has played without Neal the last two games due to a positive COVID result. He is expected to return to the lineup this week against the New York Giants to join Parsons and Leighton Vander Esch in the rotation. The team hasn’t played Cox much this season, but with Smith’s release that could open the door for more playing time for the LSU rookie.

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Should the Eagles have interest in LB Jaylon Smith after his release from Cowboys?

Should the Eagles have interest in veteran linebacker Jaylon Smith after his release from the Dallas Cowboys?

The Eagles have a need for a versatile, athletic linebacker, and the Cowboys just released a familiar player at the position.

Adam Schefter is reporting that Dallas is releasing linebacker Jaylon Smith. The former Notre Dame star linebacker has seen his playing time dwindle behind star rookie Micah Parsons and free-agent signee Keanu Neal.

Philadelphia has struggled to defend the pass at the linebacker position and it’s now become a growing problem on a week to week basis.

Smith, a former second-round pick who counts $9.8 million against the cap this season, played 97.8 percent of the Cowboys’ defensive snaps last season and did a good job of spying Eagles quarterback Jalen Hurts during their home win over Philadelphia on Monday night football in Week 3.

As a pass-rushing linebacker, Smith has excelled during his career with 9.0 sacks, 15 quarterback hits, and 20 tackles for loss.

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Week 1 snap counts show changing of guards, Cowboys LBs Smith, LVE replaced

Rookie Micah Parsons was on the field for 51 defensive snaps in Week 1. Jaylon Smith and Leighton Vander Esch? Significantly fewer. | From @ToddBrock24f7

One of Week 1’s big storylines for Cowboys fans was the regular-season unveiling of Dan Quinn’s revamped defense. In coming to Dallas this year, the new coordinator brought with him fresh faces, a re-tooled scheme, and the promise of improvement over 2020’s dreadful unit. The club made defense a focus of the offseason, spending eight of their 11 draft picks on talent on that side of the ball. And the first test of all of it came on opening night against the defending world champions and their high-powered offensive attack.

Cowboys fans wanted a change. They sure got it. Looking at the snap counts from Thursday’s 31-29 loss to Tampa Bay shows a definite changing of the guard at the team’s hotly-contested linebacker position. First-round pick Micah Parsons was on the field for 78% of the defensive snaps in his first real NFL game. Keanu Neal, who came from Atlanta to reunite with Quinn and switched from safety to linebacker in the process, got 77%, just one less play.

Veterans Jaylon Smith and Leighton Vander Esch, though, each received less than a quarter of the total snaps on defense.

Were those snap counts- at least in part- simply the appropriate response to what head coach Mike McCarthy likes to call “the ebb and flow of the game?” Undoubtedly. The Bucs threw the ball 50 times in what was expected all along to be an aerial shootout, and Parsons and Neal were listed as the nickel linebackers for Week 1.

“It depends on the game,” McCarthy said Friday. “Game plans are really game-plan specific.”

And this game plan included 2018’s most-feared linebacker duo in the league sitting on the bench for three-quarters of it. It was a stark reversal of fortunes for both linebackers; Smith played nearly 98% of last year’s defensive snaps and had started 50 straight games before Thursday, and Vander Esch was on the field for 42% of 2020’s snaps, even despite missing much of the season due to injury.

“There’s a lot of potential left in this team,” Parsons told reporters following Thursday’s game. “There’s so much. We’re young, too; we’ve got a mixture of young guys mixed in with the old guys. I think we’ve got a chance to be a really good defense. A damn good defense.”

The old guys. Smith and Vander Esch are just 26 and 25, respectively. But, as he showed in camp, the 22-year-old Parsons seems to play at a different speed, one that renders all other Cowboys defenders in near-slow-motion.

It’s already hard to imagine an offensive game plan- from any opponent- that would put flip the snap counts to have Parsons standing on the sideline watching Smith and Vander Esch resume their former workloads.

McCarthy talked about how the night’s situational approach impacted the veteran pair’s playing time.

“I think they understand, if you just look at the big picture,” the coach explained. “Personally, I can’t speak on their behalf. If they weren’t frustrated, I’d be disappointed. These guys have played a lot of football throughout their whole career. But it’s our focus to be better as a whole as a defense, and frankly, the more players that you play, the better off you’re going to be.”

That means giving the bulk of the snaps to the best player at the position, and it’s taken astonishingly little time in Dallas for Parsons to establish himself as exactly that.

The rookie logged seven tackles Thursday night, with one pass defensed and a quarterback hit in his regular season debut.

“I thought it was a good start for him,” McCarthy said. “I think he’s beyond his years. He’s still a rookie. It’s the first time he played in an NFL game, and also, the communication responsibility that he has to handle: that’s a new experience, I don’t care where you played or how much time you get in the preseason. I thought he got off to a good start.”

But he wasn’t perfect. Brady and the Bucs got him turned around a few times, with at least one national outlet going so far as to suggest- unfairly, it turns out– that Parsons was in over his head.

“He’s got a very bright future,” McCarthy continued on Parsons. “I’m very confident that he’ll continue to grow. I thought he looked comfortable. I liked the way our young guys played. They made some mistakes, and that’s part of it. I’ve done this a lot; I’ve done it throughout my whole coaching career. We’ve always played young guys going back to ‘06, and you have to swallow hard sometimes because they get in spots and it may not be clean for them. They’re a step slow. So, you have some of that. But our young guys are into the game. It wasn’t too big for anybody. I loved the way they went about it. And that’s the first step.”

As for the rookie, he says he’s too focused on his job to be thinking about whose snaps he might be taking away.

“I’m thinking about what I can do to get off the field, what I can do to create a turnover and impact,” Parsons told reporters after the Week 1 loss. “Just doing my one-eleventh on that field and doing exceptionally good at it. That’s what I’m thinking about. Not letting those guys down, because I know when they’re out there, I want them to do the same thing.”

But if the Cowboys’ Week 1 usage of Parsons is any indication, those guys may not be out there all that often anymore.

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Cowboys News: Rebirth for Jaylon and Leighton? Is McCarthy’s seat already hot?

Don’t give up on the LB duo that took Dallas by storm in 2018, concern for La’el Collins, and the clock’s already ticking for McCarthy. | From @StarConscience and @ToddBrock24f7

Cowboys fans who have already mentally ceded the team’s top two linebacker spots to Micah Parsons and Keanu Neal aren’t alone in their optimism for the newcomers. But don’t give up completely on Jaylon Smith and Leighton Vander Esch quite yet. There’s statistical evidence that says- based on their years- their best days may be yet to come.

And after a bad-luck debut season, head coach Mike McCarthy likely deserves a do-over. But since he won’t get one, it’s fair to ask if he’s already on the hot seat as he oversees a talented team with superstars in their prime. Lots of looking ahead to Tampa, with Dak Prescott ready to rock and roll, Tyron Smith ditching his neck roll, and a rookie defender hoping to get on a roll against the Bucs. There’s concern about La’el Collins’s status for opening night, Week 1 uniform news, details on a Cowboys watch party, and a top-dollar subplot to the Prescott-versus-Brady matchup. All that and more, in News and Notes.

Cowboys have a Jaylon Smith problem that may not have answer in 2021

Some teams would kill to have a 26-year old player who’s been to the Pro Bowl in the last three seasons being challenged for his role. But this is Dallas. | From @KDDrummondNFL

In a way, the Cowboys have a problem many teams would love to have. The talent level at one position is so high that there are young Pro Bowl veterans being squeezed for playing time. Each and every of the 32 franchises across the league would love to have this problem, regardless of position group.

For the Cowboys, it just so happens to be linebacker. This makes things interesting because linebacker is a position that suffers a ton of attrition, so depth is necessary as any Dallas fan can attest to being the case since Sean Lee first walked through the Valley Ranch doors. Entering the offseason, the Cowboys had two big question marks sitting atop the LB depth chart, and the one that had been traced and retraced until a hole was bore through the paper is that of Jaylon Smith.

Smith signed a contract extension following his best season, 2018. In that five-year-added-on-top-of-the-two-remaining deal he was rewarded handsomely. Unfortunately since that 2018 season where he and then-rookie Leighton Vander Esch established themselves as one of the league’s top young duos, things have tumbled downhill.

Smith deserved to make the Pro Bowl in 2018 but didn’t while Vander Esch did. Smith was named in 2019, but he was hardly a Pro Bowl caliber player beyond a large number of tackles. Like most positions, volume stats tell only  a small part of the picture for players. With Smith, his shortcomings in response, pursuit, and coverage ability were coming to the forefront. His play regressed further in 2020, leading to a big offseason decision process for the front office.

Or so it seemed.

Cowboys News: Prescott’s most important relationship, changing of the guard at LB

A look at lessons learned during Dak Prescott’s painful 2020, who’s primed for a defensive bounceback, and why a boring Hard Knocks is good. | From @StarConscience and @ToddBrock24f7

Dak Prescott is on the cusp of beginning his real comeback. But Cowboys head coach Mike McCarthy doesn’t want to be the person with whom his quarterback has the strongest bond; he’s built his entire system in Dallas from Day One on strengthening Prescott’s relationship with someone else. And as No. 4 looks to put a painful 2020 behind him, he’s made it through unimaginable darkness with unexpected clarity and light. It’s a powerful story well worth reading.

Elsewhere in Cowboys Nation, the team has shuffled the deck with its kickers, and the two-time rushing champ is earmarked as a top red-zone threat once again. But defense dominates the buzz today: Maurice Canady’s surprising (or not surprising camp), Jourdan Lewis’s bounceback season, Reggie Robinson’s disappearing act, and diminishing roles for Jaylon Smith and Leighton Vander Esch all make the headlines. Plus, a Friday Night Lights-style showdown to mark the end of Cowboys camp, and why it’s a good thing that Hard Knocks has been so boring thus far. Here’s the News and Notes.