Tag: Terence Steele

Cowboys banking on Terence Steele’s improvement in 2024

The Cowboys are going to be breaking in two new starters on the OL so they need Terence Steele to step up into a more self-sufficient role. | From @ReidDHanson

When the Cowboys re-signed Terence Steele to a five-year, $85,500,000 deal in the offseason of 2023, they did so assuming Steele would return to form following his December knee injury.

Assumptions can be dangerous business in the NFL; especially true when dealing with injured players. The Cowboys assumed Michael Gallup would bounce back from his knee injury at the end of the 2021 season and that never materialized. They made similar losing bets by re-signing injury flagged players like Jaylon Smith and Leighton Vander Esch only to see their time cut short as well. Last seen, Steele was an extreme liability in pass protection.

Out of 81 OTs graded by PFF in 2023, Steele graded 70th overall. Prescott’s 2.56 ATT (average time to throw) was among the 10 fastest of those QBs with 15 or more starts, yet Steele still surrendered 56 pressures, which is second most among all OTs who played at least 80 percent of the snaps in 2023.

In all fairness, pass protection was always Steele’s weakness, even before his injury. But his run blocking was dominant in the past, so it made up for his average-to-below-average pass protection. In 2023, neither phase of his game lived up to expectations. Given the state of the Cowboys offensive line in 2024, it’s imperative Steele regains his preinjury form if the Cowboys offense wants to survive.

The Cowboys offensive line is going through a churning period of sorts this year. Tyron Smith and Tyler Biadasz have both left in free agency and without a clear heir apparent waiting in the wings, both spots could be reliant on rookies for replacements.

Sure, Tyler Smith could move over to LT and Brock Hoffman could step in at center, but both moves represent a step back at their respective position (at least temporarily) and Smith’s move just creates a new hole elsewhere (LG).

Even if the draft lands perfectly and the Cowboys are able to find their LT and C solutions early, there’s a learning curve which must be accounted for as they develop into real NFL linemen. Blue-chip prospects still struggle early as they transition to the pro game, forcing teams to roll assistance in their direction. In these situations, stability at other positions is a necessity.

In 2023 Steele regularly demanded assistance in pass protection. Luckily for him Smith at LT was one of the best in the game. According to Next Gen Stats, Smith worked on an island the third most frequently in 2023. And his 6.7% pressure rate allowed on those snaps was tops in the NFL.

The Cowboys could afford to roll help Steele’s way last season because Smith was downright dominant on the other side. In games Chuma Edoga had to play LT, things got ugly fast. Like Steele, Edoga demanded help frequently. Since Mike McCarthy couldn’t roll help to both of them at the same time, play-calling adjustments had to made and Dak Prescott’s internal clock oftentimes had to be sped up.

While a highly drafted rookie LT will hopefully be better than Edoga was in 2023, he’s extremely unlikely to be as dominant as Smith was. He’s going to need help with some assignments but to send him that help Steele is going to have to be more reliable on the right side.

Despite just technically starting his extension this season, Steele’s contract is structured in a way he’s releasable as early as next offseason. So, while he’s technically the 10th highest paid RT in the NFL per OTC, he’s playing for his job this season and the Cowboys’ offensive survival relies on his success.

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Cowboys have cornered the market at just under 8% of 2024 salary cap

The Cowboys are top heavy in their cornerback room, opening the door to help in free agency or the draft. | From @ArmyChiefW3

For a long time, the Cowboys were a struggling secondary when it came to getting interceptions. From 2015 through 2020, they never picked off more than 10 passes in a single season, and doing that only twice in the span. Then, in 2021, All-Pro cornerback Trevon Diggs did that by himself with his his league-leading 11 picks while the team totaled an amazing 26. 17 of those turnovers came from the cornerback room that season. In 2022, Dallas had 16 interceptions as a team while 2023 added another 17 making it three straight seasons in which Dallas ranked in the top 10 in total interceptions.

Wondering if Dallas can do it again under a new scheme is a valid question with Dan Quinn in Washington and Mike Zimmer taking over the defense and changing the playbook. Another question ishow much depth Dallas really has looking beyond their two projected starters. Five players under contract means the Cowboys have a sneaky need at the position and questions linger after the top two guys. Nonetheless, the current corners in Dallas rival another group for the best-managed room on the roster.

Cowboys’ offensive line already accounts for almost 25% of ’24 salary cap

Following the money spent on the offensive line finds Dallas’ depth impressive but two big holes have to be filled. | From @ArmyChiefW3

Budgeting for the offensive line is not an easy task as this group, whose numbers normally hover around 10 every season, can consume a large portion of a team’s salary cap. Even when only one player is paid top dollar, the amount of money spent on linemen can be a burden based on sheer numbers. With so many teams across the league scrambling for viable options, Dallas has assembled a cast of young hopefuls that could provide depth for the next few years.

The Cowboys will need to address the starting left tackle position this offseason, and although the upcoming draft is full of options, bringing back Tyron Smith could be the smart play. So could an agreement with center Tyler Biadasz, who is slated to hit the open market for the first time in his career. Here’s a rundown of what is currenly on the ledger for the group going into 2024.

Tyron Smith’s improving status a good sign for Cowboys and Terence Steele

Tyron’s Smith’s eventual return to the Cowboys’ lineup offers positive trickledown effects to Terence Steele who is struggling at RT. | From @ReidDHanson

If an offensive line has a weak link somewhere, there are things a team can do about it. Teams can devote extra players to assist that weak link from time to time. They can use RBs and TEs to chip block before they go out in their routes. They can even roll the pocket away from the weak link.  Hope is not lost.

If a team has two weak links? Now that’s when it gets tricky.

Such was the case in Week 16 against Miami. With Tyron Smith out, the Cowboys turned to Chuma Edoga in relief. No longer could they devote all their extra resources to RT to help out Terence Steele. They had an even bigger weakness in Edoga.

As a result, the two tackles gave up a combined nine pressures. Dak Prescott played with his head on swivel and often had to flee the pocket before downfield routes had fully matured. It was a tough day made harder because of the two tackles and there weren’t enough extra resources to fix it.

When Week 17 the final injury report was released, Smith’s name came up as a limited participant in practice and carried a questionable status for the Week 17 game. While this is technically just a 50/50 proposition, Mike McCarthy indicated optimism.

This is especially important this week with the Lions coming to town. Detroit has one of the best young EDGE players in the NFL in Aiden Hutchinson and since he primarily lines up on the left side of the defense, he’s slated to face Steele most of the afternoon. If the Cowboys are splitting resources between Steele and Edoga, Hutchinson is going to win a lot of downs. But if Smith makes it back into the lineup, Steele can all of the extra resources rolled his way.

Smith has been one of the most unassisted LTs in the game this season. While his age may have impacted his durability, it hasn’t impacted his ability to play on an island. This special trait is important when the tackle opposite him happens to be third in pressures given up this season. Not third on the team. Third of all linemen in the entire NFL.

The Cowboys are a different team with Smith in the lineup. He impacts both phases of the game in multiple ways. If he can make it back on the field this Saturday, it’ll be good news to the Cowboys and good news to Steele.

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Have the Cowboys finally learned their lesson on the offensive line?

“Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” Will Dallas finally learn their lesson on the offensive line, asks @ReidDHanson

It was late December. The Cowboys were on their final push for the playoffs and on track to post yet another 12-win season. Injuries and depth issues put Dallas in a precarious position at OT. One starting tackle was rushed back from injury and clearly not playing up to his previous standard, while the other tackle position was manned by a player who probably should have been playing guard.

Coming off a game in which Terence Steele and Chuma Edoga accounted for nine pressures, five hurries, three hits and a sack, it’s understandable if it seems the situation above is describing the current state of affairs in Dallas. But it’s actually the 2022 season being described, illustrating the same predictable issues continue to plague the Cowboys year after year.

It was Spanish philosopher George Santayana who famously said, “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” Because lessons that aren’t remembered, aren’t really lessons at all. The Cowboys appeared to learn a lesson the hard way in 2022. Issues on the offensive line caused their running game and pass protection to crater late in the season, ultimately dooming them in the playoffs.

It was a lesson they should have remembered as they entered the 2023 offseason. Tyron Smith was averaging just 5.6 games per season over the previous three seasons. Steele was recovering from a catastrophic knee injury, likely impacting his already suspect pass-protection ability in 2023. Tyler Biadasz was a year away from free agency and Zack Martin reached a point in which he could retire at any time. Even after keeping Smith another season and committing to Steele long-term, the need on the offensive line was apparent.

Whether it was an OG or OT depended on how the Cowboys viewed Tyler Smith. If he was still seen as the future LT in Dallas, then they needed to find a starting quality OG. If he was seen as dominant OG in the making, they need a starting quality OT. Regardless of specifics, they needed a starting quality player added to the mix because the chances were strong, they’d be leaning on that player at some point in the season and certainly need them long-term down the road.

In the 2022 NFL draft they clearly had it in mind. They came ever so close to making Matthew Bergeron their top pick instead of Mazi Smith. Seen primarily as a high-end OG prospect, Bergeron signaled the Cowboys still saw Tyler Smith as future LT. It also would have kept Tyler Smith cross-trained and ready to replace Tyron Smith when his inevitable absence arose.

The Cowboys again had a chance at drafting a starting-level offensive linemen in the second round with O’Cyrus Torrence. Torrence has logged 1,016 snaps for Buffalo this season and ranks fifth amongst his draft class in PFF grade. Bergeron has played 1,007 snaps and ranks third. Both players have proven to be immediate viable options.

Even with Tyron Smith’s sudden resurgence (has played 11 of 15 games in 2023), either player would have a significant impact on the Cowboys this season, given two of Smith’s missed games resulted in loses and featured some fairly abhorrent play at LT. Given offensive linemen tend to develop slowly, it would also set the Cowboys up better for 2024 when Tyron Smith and Zack Martin’s future in the league may fall into doubt.

But instead of truly investing in the offensive line, the Cowboys decided to tread water and kick the can on the offensive line. They added the aforementioned Edoga, hoping to tap something in the veteran his two teams before Dallas never could. And they drafted Asim Richards, hoping one of their many Day 3 picks on the offensive line over the years would finally bear fruit.

Cowboys seem to have overestimated their ability to replace Tyron Smith at LT and simultaneously underestimated the impact Steele’s knee injury.

Looking at all the offensive linemen across the league, Steele has allowed the third most pressures in 2023. The Cowboys can give him frequent help in his assignments but only if everyone else is playing at peak. But when Tyron Smith misses time, his replacement, who’s even more pressure-prone than Steele, needs all the help he can get. It’s a recipe for disaster the Cowboys should have seen coming.

Will the Cowboys finally learn from this pain and act on it like they should have last offseason? That’s a question to be revisited in the 2024 offseason.

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Reddick-Steele among 3 critical matchups that will determine Cowboys-Eagles victor

The Cowboys can expect a significantly better outcome against the Eagles in Week 14 if they win these three critical matchups. | From @ReidDHanson

When the Eagles travel to Texas to take on the Cowboys in Week 14, it will be a battle for first place in the NFC East. With the better overall record and a head-to-head win already on their side, Philadelphia is in the driver’s seat. A win against Dallas on Sunday would essentially seal the deal and banish the Cowboys to a fifth seed according to most projections.

For Dallas to keep pace, they need to win Sunday and also little help down the road since they trail in key tiebreakers. For the Cowboys, this game is extremely critical both for playoff seeding and for their psyche. They haven’t beaten a team of Philadelphia’s caliber this season and need an elite skin on the wall before they can be considered a truly legit contender.

How they perform in a few key matchups will likely dictate their fate on Sunday night. Luckily for everyone there are no shortages of great matchups between these two heavyweights this week.

A great case be made that Philadelphia TE Dallas Goedert will play a significant role on Sunday. He’s expected to return to the lineup for the first time since he broke his arm in the first Cowboys-Eagles meeting back in Week 9. To say he’s extra motivated to bully the Dallas defense is probably an understatement.

Philadelphia struggled at TE without him in recent weeks. He’s by far their best blocker and pass catcher of the bunch and instantly upgrades both phases of the game for the Eagles. But TE matchups are tough because rarely does one defender take on a TE all game. As such, there isn’t a true key matchup  here since it will be a group effort against the tastefully named TE.

It will also likely be a chess match between A.J. Brown and DeVonta Smith with Stephon Gilmore and DaRon Bland. Matching up Gilmore with Brown and Bland and Smith in Week 9 seemed to work in Dallas’ favor, but after watching Bland’s struggles against the big-bodied D.K. Metcalf last week, the Eagles will likely try to flip the script in Week 14 and force new matchups. It will be very interesting to see how this all plays out and who ultimately matches up against who.

This might be Cowboys’ key to avoiding another Terence Steele fiasco vs Eagles

In the Cowboys last matchup against the Eagles Terence Steele was abysmal but there’s reason to believe that will not happen again in Week 14, says @ReidDHanson.

In the Cowboys first matchup with the Eagles, Terence Steele had a performance for the ages, and not in a good way. Dallas’ cornerstone RT had arguably the worst game of his young career, giving up four sacks, one hit, seven hurries and 12 pressures to the Philadelphia pass rush.

He offered less resistance than the 1940 French army and routinely opened Dak Prescott to punishment inside the pocket. On a scale of 0-100, Pro Football Focus awarded his pass protecting efforts a grade of 15 for the day. His protection score out of true pass sets was an almost unfathomably low 6.3, challenging the infamous Chaz Green game of 2017.

In a game that was literally determined by inches, Steele made no excuses.

“It’s really just came down to me, my fundamentals,” Steele said after the game. “Just staying true to it. I got a little sloppy there at the end.”

The noise of no one arguing with his self-critique was deafening. It was Dallas’ biggest game of the season and one they were in prime position to win in the final minute. While a handful of plays, penalties, and bad bounces all shared fault, Steele took the lion’s share of blame from fans.

Behind Enemy Lines: Week 10 Q&A with Cowboys Wire

With a Week 10 matchup between the New York Giants and Dallas Cowboys on tap, we go behind enemy lines for a chat with Cowboys Wire.

The New York Giants (2-7) and Dallas Cowboys (5-3) will square off on Sunday afternoon in a Week 10 matchup at AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas.

The Giants opened the week as 15.5-point home underdogs but that has improved to +17 as of this writing.

With this matchup on tap, Giants Wire took the opportunity to hold a Q&A with Cowboys Wire managing editor KD Drummond.

Studs and duds in Cowboys’ crushing 28-23 loss in Week 9

The offense had a bunch of positives, but in the end several factors contributed to the club coming up short. | From @BenGrimaldi

It was all there for the taking for the Dallas Cowboys, a big road win against divisional opponent with quarterback Dak Prescott leading the way. In the end it wasn’t meant to be as the Cowboys fell in a crushing 28-23 defeat to the Philadelphia Eagles in Week 9.

Prescott once again answered questions about if he could play well in a big game, and he brought with him some of his receiving options, who helped the offense get the team in position to win the game. The big statistical performances weren’t enough to carry the Cowboys, who made mistakes in critical moments. In a game of inches, Dallas fell just short too many times to walk away with the win. Here are the studs and duds for the Cowboys in a tough Week 9 loss.

RT Terence Steele is a glaring problem Cowboys need to address

The Cowboys need to adjust because Terence Steele is at the bottom of the NFL in pass protection and his run blocking isn’t making up for it. From @ReidDHanson

Terence Steele is a problem.

The Cowboys starting right tackle has not only been a weakness of the offensive line this season, but he’s been a liability. On Sunday night in Philadelphia, he made every bit the impact CeeDee Lamb made, but instead of for the positive, it was unequivocally for the negative.

It wasn’t just one great player victimizing the floundering young tackle either. The Eagles were rotating left edge players in. It was as if Oprah were giving away pressures to the studio audience at LDE – “you get a pressure, you get a pressure, you get a pressure!”

By early count, Steele was credited with eight pressures on the day. It was the same number of pressures Steele yielded against San Francisco earlier in the season. For the sake of context, Micah Parsons, arguably the best pass rusher in the NFL, is averaging just over six pressures per game.

In other words, these top teams have been getting an above Parsons-level performance by their rotation of bodies lined up over Steele. That’s like gifting the opponent an All-Pro player each game.

It’s also important to point out pressures don’t count plays in which he’s beaten but the ball has been released before the actual distance has been closed.

Mike McCarthy’s offense relies on quick game and less time in the pocket. Dak Prescott has one shortest average pocket times in the NFL this season which benefits his linemen’s pressure numbers. Steele’s numbers could, and maybe should, look much worse.

Pro Football Focus, who grades overall play and not just official pressures logged, has been fairly consistent in their grading of Steele. He’s currently rated No. 67 in the NFL amongst OTs. His grade BEFORE Sunday’s contest, had his pass blocking score in the bottom 10 of the NFL. It’s safe to assume he’ll grade even further down the rankings after this film has been digested.

Steele’s issues returning from a catastrophic knee injury suffered late last season are somewhat expected. It takes time to rebound and frankly, not all players are up to the challenge.

His Cowboys teammate, Michael Gallup, is in a similar situation with his return from a knee injury. He suffered his knee injury during the 2021 season and he’s yet to return to form.

It’s important to point out, Steele has never been a good pass protector. Even at his best last season, the 26-year-old was generally wading in the waters of average. It was his run blocking that earned him his enormous contract extension over the offseason.

Like Gallup, Steele was signed fresh off an injury in hopes he’d reclaim form. Like Gallup, those optimistic results have yet to be seen.

Even Steele’s run blocking has been well below league average this season. Yet time is on Steele’s side. The Cowboys are committed, whether they like it or not, so it’s Steele or bust for the foreseeable future in Dallas.

Steele’s tremendous work ethic and determination assure he’ll do everything within his power to get back to form. Until he’s able to physically regain form, it’s up to the Dallas coaching staff to help him out.

Giving him help blocking and frequent chips from TEs and RBs will be key to helping Steele survive this season. He can’t be left alone like he has been the majority of the time, or the results will likely be the same.

Steele has been a massive problem for the Cowboys passing game and his run blocking is doing nothing to make up for it. While his issues are understandable given his recent injury, they cannot be ignored.

It’s imperative the Cowboys find ways to help out their young tackle because he’s drowning and pulling the entire Cowboys offense down with him.

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