Everything about the NFL Draft process comes with thin margins and twists and turns.
The right player(s) need to fall to your pick. Teams picking above you might want the same player. He needs to fit on your team as a human and a football player. Coaching is paramount in determining whether the choice was a good one or not.
The NFL Draft, especially the first round, has become a “made for TV” product, and the Cowboys kept their fans glued to the action.
Even in a year in which the Cowboys’ first round choice was an easy one (offensive line), the beauty of the draft is that it can always be unpredictable. Just ask Atlanta Falcons fans.
Dallas went into the night holding the 24th pick in the first round. Minutes before the Cowboys went on the clock, reporters in Detroit began to get word that Dallas was considering all of its options for that selection, including trading the pick and moving down in the draft.
Even as the Cowboys went on the clock, nothing had been decided.
Eventually, Dallas decided to trade its 24th overall pick to the host Detroit Lions, along with a 2025 7th round pick, in exchange for the 29th pick last night and an extra third round pick, which will come into play on Friday.
So, with the 29th pick in the 2024 NFL Draft, the Dallas Cowboys select…
Tyler Guyton, Offensive Tackle from Oklahoma.
Listed at 6’7, 327 pounds, Guyton returns to his native state of Texas. He grew up in Manor, TX, a northeast suburb of Austin.
Even as he initially stayed close to home to play his college football at TCU, “home” was an ambiguous term.
In high school, Guyton played on the defensive line. At TCU, he split time between offensive line and running back. It wasn’t until he transferred to Oklahoma that he became an anchor on the Sooners’ offensive line, mostly playing Right Tackle.
In 20 starts in Norman, with more than 1000 snaps under his belt, Guyton was responsible for only two sacks, both of which came in 2022. He did not allow a single sack or QB hit in 2023.
With the trade the Cowboys made, they will get to make three picks on Friday. Dallas has the 24th pick in the second round (56 overall), and the ninth (73 overall) and 24th picks (87) in the third round.
ANALYSIS
Guyton is a mountain of a man. He is already the Cowboys’ second-biggest offensive lineman behind LG Tyler Smith, Dallas’ first round pick in 2022.
With almost all of Guyton’s experience playing at Right Tackle (1011 snaps vs. 70 at Left Tackle), the Cowboys will either have their work cut out in using OTAs, rookie camp, and training camp to get him comfortable at Left Tackle, or draft or sign another pure Left Tackle.
But for a team that has plenty of holes to fill, there are worse problems to have than options.
Terence Steele played 1177 snaps at Right Tackle last season, but that time was far from clean and pretty.
In December 2022, Steele suffered a torn ACL and MCL. He showed so much promise before the injury that, even as he was recovering from late-season surgery, the Cowboys signed Steele to a 5-year/$82.5m contract. Dallas’ hope is that Steele will be fully recovered for 2024.
If he is not, or continues to struggle, the Cowboys have the option of using Steele as a swing tackle and moving him to the left side. They can move Tyler Smith to Left Tackle, which was the plan when they initially drafted him. They can see how Guyton responds to being on the left side.
There were some Cowboys commentators who wanted the team to use the 24th pick on fellow offensive lineman Graham Barton from Duke.
The bottom line is that the work starts now. Guyton has to put in the time and effort. The coaching he gets has to resonate.
Dallas has been the poster child for what a crap shoot the draft can be. The knock on Tyler Smith coming out of Tulsa was that he had a serious problem with holding penalties. That carried over to his young NFL career, but Smith has also become one of the best Left Guards in the NFL, as shown by his Second Team All-Pro nod in 2023.
Mazi Smith topped the charts of The Athletic’s Bruce Feldman’s list of college football “freaks” coming out of Michigan. He was on the field for just 28% of Dallas’ defensive snaps in 2023.
Guyton is viewed as “raw”. We have heard that before. The real work starts now.
But before all of that, the Cowboys have three more crucial picks to use on Friday to fill out their list of options.