‘Chopping it up’ with Zack Martin, home cooking from Mom: Life moving fast for Cowboys’ rookie OL Tyler Smith
Life is a bit surreal for Tyler Smith these days.
One morning, the rookie offensive lineman, who just turned 21 in April, is having a casual chat with former first-round draft pick and five-time All-Pro Zack Martin. They were “chopping it up,” he says, about the finer points of pass protection technique. A few hours later, he’s in his boyhood bedroom waiting on his laundry and asking what’s for dinner.
One of the benefits of growing up in Fort Worth and being a first-round draft pick of the Dallas Cowboys.
“I can just go to my mom’s house every off day and get my clothes washed,” Smith explained this week as OTAs got underway. “Being able to talk to your family, like if you have a tough day, or you just want to go home and eat a home-cooked meal. That’s always cool.”
He’s just a few weeks into his pro career, but it already feels like Smith is at home in the Cowboys locker room. The veterans have been quick to take the rookies under their wings, he says, with an eye toward getting everybody game-ready as soon as possible.
“It’s been a really good process,” Smith said. “It’s good work, too. We’re no-holds-barred when we go at it, it’s good competition. Safe, but it’s good. It’s great to get back to work.”
Rookie OL Tyler Smith said the focus of the offensive line and the messaging has been weaponizing the snap off the ball. He’s working with 2nd team at LG while Connor McGovern took first but says they’re all competing. Says Dak a cool dude who has already invited him to events
— Jane Slater (@SlaterNFL) May 25, 2022
Things could have easily looked very different for Smith right now. He had the opportunity to stay at Tulsa for another year of eligibility. He even passed up backchannel “six-figure” offers from some of the nation’s premiere programs to transfer. He might have been a top-10 or even top-five pick at offensive tackle in the 2023 draft.
Instead, he went 24th, and the learning curve has already begun.
“Everything’s starting to speed up,” he said, echoing the words of most college players once they reach the pro level.
That’s been the biggest adjustment so far for the 6-foot-6-inch 330-pounder, slated to likely play left guard as he also prepares to one day take over for yet another former first-round pick, eight-time Pro Bowler Tyron Smith.
“Learning to play stable in the speed of the game. Everything speeds up each level you go up,” the rookie explained. “Just making sure you’re doing your film study right, you’re working your technique, all these little things just to make sure that when you go on the snap of the ball, there’s no mismatch, no lag: just being able to go full speed.”
Smith is learning that, for a first-year pro with huge expectations placed on him, life moves blindingly fast. The larger-than-life players he grew up watching as a youngster in Fort Worth are now his teammates with whom he shares a locker room just across town.
And some of them may be coming over to mom’s house soon for some of mom’s cooking at the traditional O-line dinner.
“It’s coming up,” Smith laughed. “We’ll be good, though. The guys, they’re going to eat. But I’ll be eating, too, so I can’t even get mad at them.”
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