The advantages of keeping Cowboys’ Tyler Smith at LG? Let OL guru Duke Manyweather explain

Today, the Cowboys’ offensive line is puzzle pieces on a floor.

Two new starters must be identified after left tackle Tyron Smith and center Tyler Biadasz departed in free agency. The most reliable returner, right guard Zack Martin, won’t be around forever; the eventual Pro Football Hall of Famer is expected to assess his football future after the 2024 season.

Tyler Smith could stay at left guard or be bumped to left tackle. Reserves like Brock Hoffman, T.J. Bass and Matt Waletzko hope to earn a larger opportunity. And then, there is the draft, which starts in one week.

The Cowboys have moving pieces.

One should stay where he is, a local expert said.

Duke Manyweather is as much a Cowboys offensive-line insider as anyone without an employee keycard at the team facility. Based across the street from Ford Center at The Star, he trains some of the league’s premier offensive linemen and draft prospects. OL Masterminds clients include Martin, right tackle Terence Steele and Tyler Smith.

Manyweather has thoughts on how the puzzle could be sorted.

His most adamant involves Smith: Don’t move him to tackle.

“He’s a special guard,” Manyweather said. “Special guard. Could be an OK tackle? Yup. Sure can. But I think fans like to romanticize what he was at tackle [in 2022], even though he was a rookie. The best way for me to describe it is Tyler’s superpowers at guard become his kryptonite a little bit at tackle.

“He’s an aggressive, in-your-face, be able to jump set and up-kick guys in the pass game, being able to roll guys and [have] violent hands at the point of attack and getting on guys early in the run game. At tackle, you can’t do that. At tackle, you have to be more patient. You have to stay within your frame, within your technique. You have to pick your spots to be able to be aggressive, and that’s just not who Tyler is as a person, and that’s not Tyler at his best when you take the aggressiveness away from him.”

There is another advantage to keeping Smith at guard, Manyweather noted.

If the Cowboys were to slide Smith to tackle, they’d have neighboring new starters at left guard and center positions. With Smith at guard, whoever the Cowboys insert at center will work with an elite guard on both sides.

The new left tackle would neighbor Smith, an AP All-Pro second-team selection last year in his second NFL season.

“With offensive line, it’s about continuity,” said Manyweather. who trained 18 draft-eligible linemen for the NFL combine this offseason. “People don’t understand. They’re like, ‘Your left tackle and center are gone. Continuity is out the window.’ In terms of communication, there is still a way to salvage it. You don’t want to have a gap in communication.”

Dallas has options at center in the building between Hoffman and Bass — the latter is a projection since Bass has never appeared at center in a game in his life, playing only guard on the interior line.

But for the sake of argument, Manyweather was asked to navigate a scenario in which he is drafting a starting center and left tackle early. If taking a center in the first round, Manyweather said he is choosing West Virginia’s Zach Frazier, “hands down,” for his consistency, experience and physicality.

A left tackle in the first round is trickier.

The position’s top prospects figure to be off the board by the time the Cowboys are on the clock at No. 24 overall. They lack the 2024 draft-pick firepower to move up for one, although theoretically they could pull from 2025 when they are currently projected to be awarded four compensatory picks.

“Or is there a player that you like, that you think you can develop, that may fall to you at 24, so you stay put?” Manyweather said. “But I think there’s a lot of talent in the tackle class. It just depends on what their strategy is in terms of acquiring the tackle.”

The strategy on whether to move Smith should be simple, Manyweather believes.

Don’t.

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