Why moving on from Tyron Smith wouldn’t necessarily be the worst thing for the Cowboys

It will be very hard to watch Tyron Smith walk away.

It’s sort of crazy to believe that the often-injured Tyron Smith is coming off one of his best seasons as a member of the Dallas Cowboys. And just when fans were starting to warm up to him again, what did we hear? We learned that according to reports, Smith is unlikely to return to the Cowboys. Well, isn’t that terrific?

It’s hard to know how to feel about this one. We love Smith the person and the player as he’s been one of the best left tackles in the game since entering the league in 2011. He never complains about anything, he never gets into any type of trouble, and he just quietly goes about his business year in and year out.

If there is a knock on Smith, it’s been his availability. To get a sense of the time he’s missed we’ve broken down his career into segments. In each of the last eight seasons, he’s missed multiple games due to injury. And sometimes he’s missed almost the entire season.

Quickly, let’s do a playing time breakdown over his career. In his first five years in the league, he played in 79 out of 80 games. That’s right. He only missed one measly game. Wow, what a young healthy lad he once was. Over the next four seasons, he played in exactly 13 games in each of those seasons. But over the next three seasons, he only played in 17 out of 50 games (34%). But then last year, he was back to his lucky 13 again, playing in most of the games last season.

When you look at that breakdown, the three-year stretch in bold is quite concerning. From a games-missed perspective, he was essentially unavailable for the equivalent of two seasons. Considering he’s 33 years old, last year’s healthier showing could be more of an anomaly than him suddenly bucking the trend of recent seasons. That makes investing more money in Smith risky business. In fact, the Cowboys felt so uneasy about his availability last offseason that they worked a pay restructure that actually saved the team some money since Smith missed four games. If Dallas were to bring Smith back, we’d hope they’d again protect themselves and finesse another playing time incentive deal.

But for that to work, the other side needs to agree, and something tells us that Team Tyron isn’t so cooperative this time around. We can still remember seeing Smith upset on the sideline when he dressed for the Arizona game, but the team cautiously opted to sit him out.

Granted, sitting Smith out when he was not at full strength may have preserved his health and helped the team get more games out of him this past season than they have in any season since 2019. However, every game he missed, his wallet took a hit because of the playing time incentives the Cowboys had worked into his contract.

The Cowboys would like to have him back and he wanted to return, at least according to reports we just heard on Friday, but the two sides apparently aren’t that close. Maybe this is just a negotiating tactic from his representation to get a more respectable offer from the Cowboys. Or, maybe his time in Dallas is truly coming to an end.

And speaking of time, whether Smith returns or not, the Cowboys need to think about life without him because eventually, this well will dry up. This is a very strong offensive tackle draft class and the Cowboys will be looking at some of those first-round prospects regardless of what Smith does. Losing him in free agency would definitely fast-track the importance of getting a new tackle. In some ways, knowing they have to replace him versus scrambling and shuffling the offensive line when he gets hurt in-season could make them more prepared for when he’s not there. It’s a move they’re going to have to make eventually, so why drag it out?

Bringing Smith back on another team-friendly deal should be welcomed by any fan because when he’s healthy, he’s still a great player. But if that deal is not an option, it’s not the worst thing in the world to move on from him. The Cowboys are in no position to waste cap resources by forking out money to a player who stands a good chance of not being available for periods of time. If that’s what it takes to sign him, let another team take that risk. Drafting another young player, especially in a talent-rich tackle draft class feels like the right decision regardless and it wouldn’t hurt to be proactive and be ready for when Smith isn’t available, because we all know that day is coming.