NFL
By: Greg Rector
The Dallas Cowboys will travel for their 17th season to Oxnard, California for their training camp. Training camp starts July 24th. Let’s examine the questions surrounding the Dallas Cowboys heading into the training camp.
The Offensive Line
Questions surround the offensive line more than any other position group for the Dallas Cowboys. Can Tyron Smith stay healthy at left tackle? What about Tyrone Steele at right tackle? Does he return in fine form? We all know that Zach Martin will be his fine self at right guard. What happens with Tyler Smith? Does he become the left guard as many of us predicted he would become a Pro Bowl player playing left guard? Finally, it appears that center Tyler Biadasz will remain the starting center entering his final season before he’s up for a new contract. The key here is the health of Tyron Smith as it has been for several seasons. If Tyron Smith can remain healthy this appears to be the starting offensive line group for the Dallas Cowboys.
My other question for its group is will they handle the different line packages for the new offensive line coach Mike Solari? Solari has used various techniques with his lines in his previous stops and will the Dallas Cowboys’ offensive line which has been a pretty standard line group.
My other questions for the offensive line are pretty straightforward. If Tyron Smith goes down and Tyler Smith has to move out to left tackle who wins the job of playing left guard? Will it be Matt Waletzko or Josh Ball who impressed at the OTA’s? Or does Waletzko move into the left tackle slot and keep Tyler Smith at left guard? We shall see what happens during training camp and the pre-season games. This is the one group that must be finalized as we all know the one group that requires the most continuity on a football team to succeed is the offensive line.
The Running Backs
Does Tony Pollard return from his injury in full health? Pollard will be playing on his franchise tag and won’t be extended by Monday’s deadline for a new long-term contract. Who will be the running back two and three? Does rookie Deuce Vaughn come in and make an impact given his size? How about veteran Ronald Jones or last year’s rookie Malik Davis? The real question is now though does Ezekiel Elliott return to be the team’s power back? I have questioned keeping Pollard as a team’s number one running back for a long time considering he was never used that way in college or with the Dallas Cowboys in prior seasons.
The Wide Receivers
CeeDee Lamb is entrenching himself as a true number-one receiver and the acquisition of Brandin Cooks in the off-season gives the Dallas Cowboys two legitimate targets. The question mark is Michael Gallup coming back for his second season after the ACL injury. Can Gallup still break a play downfield or continue to do what he was doing before his ACL injury and find ways to make those great catches, especially along the sideline? What about Jalen Tolbert coming back for his second season? Can the third-round choice in the 2022 NFL draft also make a bigger contribution than he did as a rookie?
The Tight Ends
Peyton Hendershot and Jake Ferguson must both improve from their rookie seasons and we have no idea what the second-round draft pick from this draft will do in Luke Schoonmaker. The days of Dak Prescott using Dalton Schultz as his go-to tight end are now over. So this group must step it up.
Dak Prescott
Those numbers are impressive enough for me to simply say the interception totals from last season were an aberration. Dak Prescott has the numbers in order to get himself a new contract and that will cause consternation with the Prescott haters out there. The one team the Dallas Cowboys offense must get through in order to play further along in the NFC is the San Francisco 49ers. With the improved wide receiver group since adding Brandin Cooks we shall see if Prescott can reduce the interceptions along with the new “Texas west coast offense” that Mike McCarthy will be play-calling with.
Prescott and the Dallas Cowboys despite all the hate out there for them still have a winning record against their NFC opponents including the vaunted Philadelphia Eagles.
So for all the hate out there don’t count out Dak Prescott.
So there are my questions about the various offensive positions for the Dallas Cowboys as training camp begins on July 24th.
As always find me on Twitter @GregCowboys
