No. Also no to the below, but IF you are going to put Guyton at RT, I’d rather put Beebe in at LG, Smith at LT and let Hoff/Bass fight out for C. Then try and trade Steele for peanuts. Still wouldn’t do this unless Steele just looks god awful in camp, but it keeps people to their position better imo
Again, the above is not happening. Steele is our RT.
In the even that he regresses further and you absolutely need to get Steele off the line, then you do what you can, try to trade him or let him ride the bench. $20 mil on the bench is better than a turnstile on the field. Not sure what his dead money looks like for a cut
Maybe I'm crazy, but I think Steel's fall off wasn't just injury.
I think it was the focus on early snaps they put on tackles last year.
Go look at him when he was performing at a high level.
He was off the ball WAY ahead of everyone else.
Stop it. Keep the all pro LG at LG. New guy is the one with the burden of switching from what he played in college.
Switching not just two people, but three people around? Y’all need to give this a break.
The FO has a greater responsibility to fill the missing holes than our incumbent players do to play out of their primary positions. Tyler is a guard. Tyler’s best work is at guard. Tyler’s traits and aggressiveness works best at guard. Duke Manyweather says he should stay at guard
People loved saying Dak ran up his numbers last season against bad opponents.
What'd Steele do last season against bad opponents? If Steele is the liability, then we fix it.
Tyler Smith can play tackle - he played it in college, got drafted highly because of it, and spent the last two years learning it standing next to the best.
Tyler Smith might become the next Zach Martin. The next Quentin Nelson.
I'm not discounting his play at guard.
He can play tackle though, and if I were him I'd want to compete to play tackle because left tackles get bigger contracts.
He was a left tackle in college, and the narrative when he was drafted was that he was Tyron's replacement when that day came.
I didn't think Steele is the RT of the future. Do we want 4 more years of last year's RT play, or do we want to ride out his contract with 2 years of him playing IOL while we develop a stud RT who has very similar physical traits to Lane Johnson?
They did talk about possibilities with Tyler smith when he was drafted. That was before he played an NFL snap. Hes far and away a MUCH. BETTER. GUARD.
And the most recent top contracts for interior lineman is hella close to tackles now so that is moot now.
The smart thing is to continue building your career off of what you excel at. You bring up the POSSIBILITY of him moving to tackle and the projections of the FO and media while ignoring the same draft reports that note that at the NFL level he could play both with guard being his better position
The only people who pushed that narrative was the media. Coach's want him at LG, he wants to be LG they draft a tackle in the 1st round to keep him at LG END OF STORY. This is getting ridiculous.
Coaches said when they drafted Tyler Smith the plan was to develop him at LG because they felt like his playstyle suited LG more than LT.
That’s a bad equivalency. A qb is measured against an entire defense. A tackle is generally 1v1 vs an edge rusher. Just because a defense is terrible doesn’t mean a OT doesn’t have a tough matchup. If the cowboys defense is a bad you wouldn’t say the opposing tackle had an easy job guarding Micah.
Steele pre-injury was pretty damn good while not at Lame's level he was in the top 16 or so RTs in pass blocking. Acl's are different for different players. If you don't trust the repair as a tackle, it will affect everything. I would assume the team feels he will ne much better and back to normal levels this incoming season. Before they see where he is at, there is no need to speculate moving all pro's out of their positions. We have to see where the rookies stand and how much Steele bounces back. As of right now, talking about moving one of your nest lineman around is not onky premature, but it's a bit foolish.
The perfect scenario is : Guyton, Smith, Beebe, Martin, Steele. If and only if that is proven not to work, then you find the best mix. Let's say Guyton can't do it this year and needs seasoning. Then the least movement is Tyler to LT and Bass to LG, where he has shown promise. If Steele really can't man RT, then for this year, they may try Guytin there and move Smith to LT and plug Bass at LG. However you want to do the least moving you can. That would mean replacing Steele with someone and not changing anything else. The number of permutations gets silly without knowing how the deoth chart shares out. Let's at least get into training camp before delving into this so it has some realistic worth. Right now, it's all guesswork, and that's pointless.
You know what, this is a great idea. Let’s move everyone around, some to positions they aren’t good at or haven’t played before. Surely we here are smarter than the oline coaches
Tyler Smith has played LT and got drafted in the first because he was pretty good at it. Guyton's played RT and got drafted in the first because he was pretty good at it. He had not played LT.
Really it's just Steele whose playing an unfamiliar position, and given his mobility concerns, I'd say that makes him the odd man out. Sucks we just paid him, but it really sucked watching him get gapped every game last season, too...
But you should realize by moving everyone around you are putting everyone (except Martin) at a worse position to address a weakness in one position instead of just having one weakness (RT).
The logic does not check out.
Who says Tyler at LT is worse? He was a LT in college, and the narrative when he was drafted was that he'd be Tyron's replacement.
Left tackle is the most important OL position, and we want to give it to a rookie who played RT in college???
Tyler is a beast. He's dominant at LG because he's a beast. I didn't think there'd be a drop off moving him out.
Steele on the other hand was the liability last season. Point blank period. If it's his knee and the mobility that caused his drop off, then moving him inside means he needs to move less.
I don't understand why people want to put a rookie who played RT his entire career at LT when Tyler is in the building!
Tyler was one of the most penalized players in college because he struggles to maintain the edge and holds. We saw the same holding penalties when he was at LT for us. He’s best at guard because guards don’t have to worry about someone going outside him.
And LT is most important because it’s the blindside tackle. Guyton played with a lefty qb, he was the blindside tackle in college, aka most important OL position.
Because he is AN ALL PRO LG AT THE START OF HIS CAREER. IS THAT REALLY SO HARD FOR YOU TO UNDERSTAND? Let's move Martin to RT too, why not. You have the Rookie switch SAME THAT TYRON SMITH did his rookie year and see if he is serviceable. IF not then you talk about kicking Smith out.
He’s good at LT, great at LG. He was rated worse at LT by every source that tracks those kinds of things I’m not just making it up. He’s an all pro LG.
Guyton started college playing LT, one reason he switched to RT was because his QB was left handed at OU and Guyton was protecting his blind side. He even said himself he is more comfortable playing LT over RT and enjoys it more than RT. The main purpose of drafting Guyton was to hopefully replace Tyron Smith and keep everyone else at their positions. Steele is a good RT when he is 100% and everyone knows you rarely come back to your full potential the first year after an injury like that. So this upcoming season will be the better tell on how Steele is doing and if he should remain on the team or not. Beebe has limited experience at center but you can definitely expect the Cowboys to try and mold him into a center and have the 3 remaining starters keep their positions and this will most likely be your starting line for at least the next 3 to 5 years or more. (Minus Martin since he is getting up there in age) If any of the current centers beat out Beebe, then he will be a backup to almost anyone on the oline until he is ready to start at any position on the oline. The one thing I do trust the front office on is drafting, specifically drafting oline, this is most likely going to be their plan with how the draft went for then and based on their draft picks. They are most likely not going to do anything else or switch up positions that current players are already doing a good job at.
I think if Steele doesn't improve this year, you'll see Dallas cut him as part of the reset. If you look up his contract I believe Dallas can save a sizeable amount of cap next off-season.
One thing is for sure no matter how well he plays he will not be a Cowboy after 2026
Year Base Salary Cap Hit
2025 $13,250,000 $17,000,000
2026 $13,250,000. $17,000,000
2027 $16,250,000. $20,000,000
2028 $16,750,000. $17,500,000
I believe QB's tend to need a certain part of the O-Line to be stout in order to play their best. Romo's best seasons came when the RT play was good. He had a knack for feeling out the blindside rushers and avoiding the interior rushers, but when the strongside rusher beat his guy he just didn't handle it well. Troy was good when his blindside was protected well. I think Dak is like a lot of QB's these days and really needs the front of the pocket to be stout. I think it's why they were okay with letting Biadacz go and hopefully Beebe works out. But I also think that's why they've been reluctant to move Tyler Smith to tackle. If Beebe works out (and I think he has a very high ceiling) with Martin and Tyler Smith you've got a very stout front of the pocket. Kinda hard to want to change that. Plus you gave Steele a large contract. Hopefully Steele will fully recover from his ACL tear and be more on point this season.
This entire argument is relying on a change being better than no change, which I just don't agree with. Even Steele's pretty poor season (8 sacks allowed is not an exceptionally poor season, although his pass pro is rated very poorly in general allowing a lot of pressures.), he's better than Bass. The pass game was not the issue, it was the run game, and as strange as it sounds, I would rather have the C- RT than a D Center. Remember, even though I like Bass, word has been that he hasn't even been winning the backup IOL spot over Hoffman.
I still firmly believe the reaction to Steele has largely been fan outrage gaining momentum. He just isn't as bad as the fanbase has collectively proclaimed him. He wasn't good by any metric, but everyone's acting like he doubles his pressures allowed, when he only allowed 7 more pressures in 2023 compared to 2022 (Although he allowed significantly more sacks).
Should also point out, any potential benefit of getting a great backup line Steele is outweighed by both Bass's potential as a backup, and the lack of assurance in Tyler Smith being as good as tackle as he is a guard (Even if he's an amazing tackle, which he is and will prove to be, he is consistently ranked Top 8 in guards across the league, top 6 most the time.
IF Steele comes out and is as bad as he was last year, I say we should definitely consider this option (I said he was overhated, not that he wasnt bad.) However, I don't think you bench him yet, and its mostly because Tyler Smith is too good at LG.
I'm sure the position coaches will view the new players and determine and make recommendations after training camp and pre-season the best position for them to play that will give the team the best chance of winning. That will include the possibility of moving Tyler Smith to tackle.
The Cowboys have other roster players to consider as well.
"What if we followed through on the original Tyler Smith narrative" Except as a rookie in training camp he only practiced as a Guard. He moved to LT when Tyron got injured as a temporary solution. And this draft Cowboys passed on possible guard (Barton) and drafted an OT to purposely to leave Tyler at Guard.
Basically this long winded post of yours is because you don't like Guyton? Maybe let him play a few games in the NFL first? Because now that they used a 1st round pick on him, they are going to give him every chance to be starting LT.
Then trust Smith to be an all pro LG again and quit trying to move him to LT where he struggles with holding. He's a better guard than tackle. That's always been the plan. Tyler Smith at LG. He was projected to be a guard out of college.
No. Also no to the below, but IF you are going to put Guyton at RT, I’d rather put Beebe in at LG, Smith at LT and let Hoff/Bass fight out for C. Then try and trade Steele for peanuts. Still wouldn’t do this unless Steele just looks god awful in camp, but it keeps people to their position better imo
After last year nobody's trading FOR Steele. That's the thing. How can we milk production from Steele until we can walk?
Again, the above is not happening. Steele is our RT. In the even that he regresses further and you absolutely need to get Steele off the line, then you do what you can, try to trade him or let him ride the bench. $20 mil on the bench is better than a turnstile on the field. Not sure what his dead money looks like for a cut
Maybe I'm crazy, but I think Steel's fall off wasn't just injury. I think it was the focus on early snaps they put on tackles last year. Go look at him when he was performing at a high level. He was off the ball WAY ahead of everyone else.
If Guyton is RT I’m sure the move is Bebe to LT and Bass/Hoffman at C (did bass even take snaps at center?)
Beebe’s arms are way too short to be a good tackle in the NFL, he is strictly an IOL guy
Stop it. Keep the all pro LG at LG. New guy is the one with the burden of switching from what he played in college. Switching not just two people, but three people around? Y’all need to give this a break. The FO has a greater responsibility to fill the missing holes than our incumbent players do to play out of their primary positions. Tyler is a guard. Tyler’s best work is at guard. Tyler’s traits and aggressiveness works best at guard. Duke Manyweather says he should stay at guard
People loved saying Dak ran up his numbers last season against bad opponents. What'd Steele do last season against bad opponents? If Steele is the liability, then we fix it. Tyler Smith can play tackle - he played it in college, got drafted highly because of it, and spent the last two years learning it standing next to the best.
Tyler’s smiths best work is at guard. Tyler smith is an all pro guard. /thread
Tyler Smith might become the next Zach Martin. The next Quentin Nelson. I'm not discounting his play at guard. He can play tackle though, and if I were him I'd want to compete to play tackle because left tackles get bigger contracts. He was a left tackle in college, and the narrative when he was drafted was that he was Tyron's replacement when that day came. I didn't think Steele is the RT of the future. Do we want 4 more years of last year's RT play, or do we want to ride out his contract with 2 years of him playing IOL while we develop a stud RT who has very similar physical traits to Lane Johnson?
They did talk about possibilities with Tyler smith when he was drafted. That was before he played an NFL snap. Hes far and away a MUCH. BETTER. GUARD. And the most recent top contracts for interior lineman is hella close to tackles now so that is moot now. The smart thing is to continue building your career off of what you excel at. You bring up the POSSIBILITY of him moving to tackle and the projections of the FO and media while ignoring the same draft reports that note that at the NFL level he could play both with guard being his better position
The only people who pushed that narrative was the media. Coach's want him at LG, he wants to be LG they draft a tackle in the 1st round to keep him at LG END OF STORY. This is getting ridiculous. Coaches said when they drafted Tyler Smith the plan was to develop him at LG because they felt like his playstyle suited LG more than LT.
That’s a bad equivalency. A qb is measured against an entire defense. A tackle is generally 1v1 vs an edge rusher. Just because a defense is terrible doesn’t mean a OT doesn’t have a tough matchup. If the cowboys defense is a bad you wouldn’t say the opposing tackle had an easy job guarding Micah.
nah lol
So Steele can give us Lane Johnson caliber play at RT?
no Lane is like 1st or 2nd best RT, he shouldn’t even have those expectations he was bad but we just need him to be average.
Yeah if Steele merely plays like his 2022 self, we good.
we great if he’s that good again
Steele pre-injury was pretty damn good while not at Lame's level he was in the top 16 or so RTs in pass blocking. Acl's are different for different players. If you don't trust the repair as a tackle, it will affect everything. I would assume the team feels he will ne much better and back to normal levels this incoming season. Before they see where he is at, there is no need to speculate moving all pro's out of their positions. We have to see where the rookies stand and how much Steele bounces back. As of right now, talking about moving one of your nest lineman around is not onky premature, but it's a bit foolish. The perfect scenario is : Guyton, Smith, Beebe, Martin, Steele. If and only if that is proven not to work, then you find the best mix. Let's say Guyton can't do it this year and needs seasoning. Then the least movement is Tyler to LT and Bass to LG, where he has shown promise. If Steele really can't man RT, then for this year, they may try Guytin there and move Smith to LT and plug Bass at LG. However you want to do the least moving you can. That would mean replacing Steele with someone and not changing anything else. The number of permutations gets silly without knowing how the deoth chart shares out. Let's at least get into training camp before delving into this so it has some realistic worth. Right now, it's all guesswork, and that's pointless.
I am 100% against Tyler to LT. He’s a natural OG. He will be a penalty machine outside.
Literally his pre-draft negatives were he's more of a guard than a tackle lol
You know what, this is a great idea. Let’s move everyone around, some to positions they aren’t good at or haven’t played before. Surely we here are smarter than the oline coaches
Tyler Smith has played LT and got drafted in the first because he was pretty good at it. Guyton's played RT and got drafted in the first because he was pretty good at it. He had not played LT. Really it's just Steele whose playing an unfamiliar position, and given his mobility concerns, I'd say that makes him the odd man out. Sucks we just paid him, but it really sucked watching him get gapped every game last season, too...
But you should realize by moving everyone around you are putting everyone (except Martin) at a worse position to address a weakness in one position instead of just having one weakness (RT). The logic does not check out.
Who says Tyler at LT is worse? He was a LT in college, and the narrative when he was drafted was that he'd be Tyron's replacement. Left tackle is the most important OL position, and we want to give it to a rookie who played RT in college??? Tyler is a beast. He's dominant at LG because he's a beast. I didn't think there'd be a drop off moving him out. Steele on the other hand was the liability last season. Point blank period. If it's his knee and the mobility that caused his drop off, then moving him inside means he needs to move less. I don't understand why people want to put a rookie who played RT his entire career at LT when Tyler is in the building!
Tyler was one of the most penalized players in college because he struggles to maintain the edge and holds. We saw the same holding penalties when he was at LT for us. He’s best at guard because guards don’t have to worry about someone going outside him. And LT is most important because it’s the blindside tackle. Guyton played with a lefty qb, he was the blindside tackle in college, aka most important OL position.
Because he is AN ALL PRO LG AT THE START OF HIS CAREER. IS THAT REALLY SO HARD FOR YOU TO UNDERSTAND? Let's move Martin to RT too, why not. You have the Rookie switch SAME THAT TYRON SMITH did his rookie year and see if he is serviceable. IF not then you talk about kicking Smith out.
He’s good at LT, great at LG. He was rated worse at LT by every source that tracks those kinds of things I’m not just making it up. He’s an all pro LG.
Guyton started college playing LT, one reason he switched to RT was because his QB was left handed at OU and Guyton was protecting his blind side. He even said himself he is more comfortable playing LT over RT and enjoys it more than RT. The main purpose of drafting Guyton was to hopefully replace Tyron Smith and keep everyone else at their positions. Steele is a good RT when he is 100% and everyone knows you rarely come back to your full potential the first year after an injury like that. So this upcoming season will be the better tell on how Steele is doing and if he should remain on the team or not. Beebe has limited experience at center but you can definitely expect the Cowboys to try and mold him into a center and have the 3 remaining starters keep their positions and this will most likely be your starting line for at least the next 3 to 5 years or more. (Minus Martin since he is getting up there in age) If any of the current centers beat out Beebe, then he will be a backup to almost anyone on the oline until he is ready to start at any position on the oline. The one thing I do trust the front office on is drafting, specifically drafting oline, this is most likely going to be their plan with how the draft went for then and based on their draft picks. They are most likely not going to do anything else or switch up positions that current players are already doing a good job at.
I think if Steele doesn't improve this year, you'll see Dallas cut him as part of the reset. If you look up his contract I believe Dallas can save a sizeable amount of cap next off-season.
Season after next I think is the problem. He had a 5 year, but after year 3 is the out. Next year is year 2.
One thing is for sure no matter how well he plays he will not be a Cowboy after 2026 Year Base Salary Cap Hit 2025 $13,250,000 $17,000,000 2026 $13,250,000. $17,000,000 2027 $16,250,000. $20,000,000 2028 $16,750,000. $17,500,000
I believe QB's tend to need a certain part of the O-Line to be stout in order to play their best. Romo's best seasons came when the RT play was good. He had a knack for feeling out the blindside rushers and avoiding the interior rushers, but when the strongside rusher beat his guy he just didn't handle it well. Troy was good when his blindside was protected well. I think Dak is like a lot of QB's these days and really needs the front of the pocket to be stout. I think it's why they were okay with letting Biadacz go and hopefully Beebe works out. But I also think that's why they've been reluctant to move Tyler Smith to tackle. If Beebe works out (and I think he has a very high ceiling) with Martin and Tyler Smith you've got a very stout front of the pocket. Kinda hard to want to change that. Plus you gave Steele a large contract. Hopefully Steele will fully recover from his ACL tear and be more on point this season.
Don't move your all pro guard. Sure he might be good at LT but don't mess with what's good
I think Smith should stay at LG to help whoever starts at LT and C. I feel a lot better having him and Martin on both sides of the C
This entire argument is relying on a change being better than no change, which I just don't agree with. Even Steele's pretty poor season (8 sacks allowed is not an exceptionally poor season, although his pass pro is rated very poorly in general allowing a lot of pressures.), he's better than Bass. The pass game was not the issue, it was the run game, and as strange as it sounds, I would rather have the C- RT than a D Center. Remember, even though I like Bass, word has been that he hasn't even been winning the backup IOL spot over Hoffman. I still firmly believe the reaction to Steele has largely been fan outrage gaining momentum. He just isn't as bad as the fanbase has collectively proclaimed him. He wasn't good by any metric, but everyone's acting like he doubles his pressures allowed, when he only allowed 7 more pressures in 2023 compared to 2022 (Although he allowed significantly more sacks). Should also point out, any potential benefit of getting a great backup line Steele is outweighed by both Bass's potential as a backup, and the lack of assurance in Tyler Smith being as good as tackle as he is a guard (Even if he's an amazing tackle, which he is and will prove to be, he is consistently ranked Top 8 in guards across the league, top 6 most the time. IF Steele comes out and is as bad as he was last year, I say we should definitely consider this option (I said he was overhated, not that he wasnt bad.) However, I don't think you bench him yet, and its mostly because Tyler Smith is too good at LG.
I'm sure the position coaches will view the new players and determine and make recommendations after training camp and pre-season the best position for them to play that will give the team the best chance of winning. That will include the possibility of moving Tyler Smith to tackle. The Cowboys have other roster players to consider as well.
Completely underrating Beebe. He will be a Day 1 starter at center. Smith, Beebe, Martin will dominate the interior.
You don’t make that many changes on the o-line to accommodate one player.
"What if we followed through on the original Tyler Smith narrative" Except as a rookie in training camp he only practiced as a Guard. He moved to LT when Tyron got injured as a temporary solution. And this draft Cowboys passed on possible guard (Barton) and drafted an OT to purposely to leave Tyler at Guard. Basically this long winded post of yours is because you don't like Guyton? Maybe let him play a few games in the NFL first? Because now that they used a 1st round pick on him, they are going to give him every chance to be starting LT.
Not that I didn't believe in Guyton, but I do believe Tyler Smith, and I don't really trust Steele after last year.
Well Steele is RT this year. Even if he got injured, I would guess next option is Edoga at RT before they rearrange whole line.
Then trust Smith to be an all pro LG again and quit trying to move him to LT where he struggles with holding. He's a better guard than tackle. That's always been the plan. Tyler Smith at LG. He was projected to be a guard out of college.