Tyler Guyton’s biggest challenge as Cowboys rookie

The Cowboys followed a familiar blueprint when they selected offensive tackle Tyler Guyton in the first round of the 2024 NFL draft. Guyton was both an extremely talented and an extremely undeveloped prospect in much the same way Tyler Smith (2022) and Mazi Smith (2023) profiled when they came to Dallas.

Like the others, he’s a high-risk, high-reward draft pick, who if he develops, could be a star in the NFL. Then again, he could just as easily bust if he can’t take steps beyond where he is today. The chips fell in opposite directions with the previous two first rounders. Tyler Smith developed at light speed and is already considered one of the best in the game. Mazi Smith wasn’t so fortunate and logged the lowest number of defensive snaps for a Cowboys first rounder since Bobby Carpenter.

Looking at all Guyton has to do to become a trustworthy left tackle this season, it may be irresponsible to pencil him in as the starter. He needs refinement in all areas of his game and doesn’t have a clear strength to fall back on.

It seems clear, if the Cowboys really want to get Guyton into the starting lineup as a rookie, they need him to eliminate the truly bad plays from his game.

Filed under, “well, duh” in the 2024 strategy guide, eliminating the bad plays may sound fairly obvious. But with Guyton it’s less about maxing out his good and more about cutting out the bad because the rookie from Oklahoma had a lot of bad the past two years.

Of Guyton’s stable metrics, he’s largely middle of the road in most areas. He’s been solid in pass protection, flashing that ceiling that made him a first-round pick, but inconsistent enough to raise concern in his ability to protect Dak Prescott’s blind side. In a league where quarterback is king and it only takes one breakdown in pass protection to doom a season, eliminating the bad is paramount at the LT position.

As a run blocker, negative plays are even more concerning for the rookie. Ranking in just the ninth percentile in negatively graded run plays, Guyton is one of the most flawed run blockers in his class. Since this is one of the most stable metrics to track, it’s something that should hold special consideration in his development as a pro.

Guyton specifically struggled with inside-zone runs at Oklahoma. The same inside-zone Brian Schottenheimer is famous for running as an offensive coordinator. Guyton’s negative grades on inside-zone runs beat out his positive grades more than 2-to-1.

A blown assignment on a running play may not sound like a significant event given total number of players involved in blocking for a running play, but the numbers tell a different tale: On a running play with zero negatively graded blocks, running plays historically have a 60.2% success rate. On plays with one or more negative graded blocks that success rate drops to 25.7%. Understandably the EPA follows suit, dropping from +0.27 to -0.27.

It shows one bad block can make all the difference in the running game and both phases of the game should be seen as single point failure areas for offensive linemen and not just pass-protection.

For Guyton, it’s not about the pancake blocks or the highlight-reel peaks in performance, it’s about cutting out the blown assignments and lowlight-reel valleys in performance.

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Story originally appeared on Cowboys Wire