After playing 13 seasons for the Dallas Cowboys, Tyron Smith is getting used to the idea that he will be wearing green and white this fall after he failed to get a deal from Jerry Jones and the rest of the front office.
Eight Pro Bowls, two First Team All-Pro selections and a selection as a member of the league’s 2010s All-Decade Team is the result of his body of work since being selected ninth overall in the 2011 NFL Draft out of USC.
Many wondered why the Cowboys wouldn’t want him back. Well, that wasn’t the case, but more so that the team did not have the funds to do so, according to Jerry Jones.
Jerry Jones said the team couldn’t afford to keep him around with the chance that he hit his incentive deals on his contract, per the Fort Worth Star-Telegram‘s Clarence Hill.
Smith, who is coming off a one-year, $6 million restructured contract with Dallas, entered free agency and signed a one-year deal worth up to $20 million with the New York Jets. If Smith plays 38 percent of the snaps, he will make another $750,000, and he will pocket a total of $12 million if he can stay in the lineup for 68 percent of the snaps.
Those incentives made Smith unaffordable for the Cowboys and Jerry Jones.
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The option at left tackle now is Tyler Smith, which Jones said is a “viable thing.”
“I’d say that’s a good, viable thing. . . . Keep the idea there. Don’t dismiss that idea,” Jones said of moving Tyler Smith, per Michael Gehlken of the Dallas Morning News (h/t Pro Football Talk‘s Charean Williams). “Certainly, he’s potentially, I want to say, a great player at left tackle.”
Jerry Jones and the Cowboys drafted Tyler Smith 24th overall in 2022 as the heir apparent to Tyron Smith. Tyler would spend most of his rookie season at left tackle with Tyron Smith injured, but moved to left guard full time in 2023 and made the Pro Bowl for the first time.
Jerry Jones Claimed Cowboys Were “All-In” For The Offseason & Have Delivered Nothing
Cowboys owner Jerry Jones told reporters in January that he expects to go “all-in” for the 2024 season.
The Dallas Cowboys offseason has been extremely quiet and it has left the supporters in disarray that the team has not gotten any better.
Dallas was the last team to come to an agreement with a player in the league’s legal tampering period ahead of the start of the NFL’s new league year and that agreement was to re-sign long snapper Trent Sieg.
