The Dallas Cowboys have made contract disputes with their best players a yearly tradition. In 2024, it was Dak Prescott and CeeDee Lamb; currently, it’s Micah Parsons; next year, it will be All-Pro guard Tyler Smith.
This front office regime is stuck in a loop that hurts both their own salary situation and their relationship with the players.
When you wait, and wait, and wait to extend contracts, good young players’ prices skyrocket as the market increases and their accolades stack. This is what happened to every single Cowboy I named over the past two years.
In terms of Smith, Dallas’s first-round pick in 2022, he will enter the final year of his rookie contract next season. Smart teams would extend him before then; the Cowboys likely won’t.
Let’s look at the Tyler Smith resume, and what the contract could be when the Cowboys negotiate with him at the last minute in 2026.
Tyler Smith: Blossiming Into Top-Tier, Highest-Paid Guard
When the Cowboys selected the Tulsa guard in 2022, many called it a reach.
His tape showed elite traits and flashes of potential, but holes in his actual game. As they’ve done so many times before, Dallas took that framework and built it into an elite guard today.
Smith, 24, has now made back-to-back Pro Bowls, and in 2023 he was named an All-Pro. He has solidified himself as the heir to Zack Martin’s throne.
https://twitter.com/Brandoniswrite/status/1944388703352217900Especially when you add in the youth surrounding him on the offensive line, Smith’s importance doubles, at least. Tyler Guyton, Tyler Booker, and Cooper Beebe will develop seeing Smith as the big dog.
He deserves serious credit for how quickly he’s blossomed, and he isn’t done yet. Tyler Smith is becoming one of the best guards in football.
Soon-To-Be $100M Man: Guard Contracts On The Rise
People often tag guards as low in value when it comes to extensions. However, the next guy at the position to get paid will likely have a top-20 non-quarterback contract in the entire league.
Trey Smith, the Chiefs’ stellar right guard, inked a $23M per-year deal in July. Over four years, that’s $94M in total.
The average amount there is a new high in NFL history, but both Atlanta’s Chris Lindstrom and Carolina’s Robert Hunt are under $100M deals, the only two in the league at the position.
When you factor in Smith’s youth, you have to imagine he’s going to ask for at least $105M by the 2026 offseason. If he has an All-Pro year, that could reach as high as $110M in total.
The Tyler Smith Bottom Line: Save Money, Spend Now
Let’s go on the conservative side and say Smith doesn’t reset the market, but instead slots in third with a straight $100M deal.
That would make him the third highest-paid Cowboy on the roster, behind only Prescott and Lamb. Of course, Parsons will likely join that list and get far beyond what Smith could ever dream of.
Even if that happens, however, Smith still joins a very exclusive club in Dallas, and gets an $87M raise from his original contract.
The point is, Tyler Smith is going to cost an absolute ton of money in the future. If they instead prioritized an extension now, we’re likely under that triple digit mark, and that’s a major difference for a high-paying team like the Cowboys.
It is the same lesson they should have learned a long time ago: when you wait to pay your players, it hurts you in the long-term far more than paying up early does.
Dallas should save money by spending now on Smith; at least so we can avoid another Parsons situation.
