Lost in the joy of seeing the Dallas Cowboys’ offense committing to the run again is the seemingly unchecked decline of one player.
Defensive tackle Mazi Smith, the Cowboys’ first pick in 2023, has been getting manhandled in nearly every one of those running back highlights.
This is one of the better examples. Check out what Tyler Smith does to Mazi Smith on this play:
Tyler Smith pushing Mazi Smith back pic.twitter.com/2G4PSSsSWt
— Nick Harris (@NickHarrisFWST) July 28, 2025
There’s another video out there of Smith getting shoved all the way into Los Angeles County by rookie Tyler Booker. Oxnard is located in Ventura County, if you wanted to know.
Nor are these the only examples of Smith getting moved out of the way, at times with frightening ease.
This shouldn’t be happening on a regular basis to a veteran player entering his third year. He certainly shouldn’t be bested by a rookie.
Sadly, the Cowboys have seen this very same movie recently involving a first-round defensive lineman pick out of Michigan.
Shades Of Taco
Taco Charlton, from Michigan, was the 28th overall pick by the Cowboys in the first round of the 2017 draft. He badly underperformed in his first two seasons.
By the 2019 season, his third, he had fallen so far that he was inactive for the first two games and finally waived on September 18, 2019.
Charlton would sign with seven different teams between 2019-2023, playing one season for just four of them. In 2023, he signed with both the Jaguars and the 49ers but never played a single snap.
In 2022, he signed with New Orleans in April, was released in August, and latched on with the Bears for less than two months in the season.
If Smith doesn’t turn things around, he could find himself on a similar track. Especially if Jay Toia, this year’s seventh-round pick out of UCLA, can show he’s a better run-stopper.
Or, at the very least, can show he won’t get shoved aside as easily as Smith has been so far in camp.
It Isn’t All On Smith
While Smith isn’t getting it done with his play, if he is destined to be cut, the fault won’t lie one hundred percent on his shoulders.
He’s had a different defensive coordinator every year. And with each change has come a physical demand that he clearly hasn’t been able to meet.
In his rookie year, Dan Quinn turned him into a slightly-oversized linebacker. Making Smith drop 30 pounds took away the reason why he was drafted: to plug up the running lanes.
Last year, Mike Zimmer had him put the weight back on, and he did improve.
But now, reports are that Matt Eberflus is having him dropping the weight once again.
It’s no wonder he is struggling. Maybe the best thing for Smith would be a change of address and a fresh start with a new team.
It certainly couldn’t hurt.
I agree…the requested weight adjustments by the coaches have not been favorable to Mazi. However, I believe a lot of these adjustments are because the coaches are trying to unearth some dominant version of Smith that is not there. He just doesn’t have that dog mentality that Dallas needs in the middle of the trenches, so the team’s best scenario is to trade him for whatever they can get and move on.
Wow, I guess it is pi for miracles to happen!! This is the first article I’ve read from this writer that I can actually agree with!! Well I agree it’s not Mazi’s fault!! I’ve been saying for a couple years now that these coordinators are the reason Mazi hasn’t been as good as he was supposed to be!! He was drafted to be a big run stopping 1 tech DT like he was at Michigan, but he can’t be what he was at Michigan if he being asked to lose a bunch of weight one year and then gain it back the next year, just to lose the weight again in his 3rd year!! If you go back to last year and look at his stats from around week 10 to week 15 or 16, you’ll see that he was starting to get more comfortable because he was playing a lot better!! And he was playing at the weight he was at in college, or at least close to it!! But just as he was starting to get used to playing at his normal weight again, he had to deal with another defensive coordinator coming in and making him lose weight again!! It’s crazy!! He was dominant in college playing at his regular weight, so why change it!? It makes no sense!! If we know he’s a dominant player while playing at a certain weight, then why not keep him at that weight!? I really feel sorry for Mazi…. I know he can be at the very least a really good player, but he can’t do it because he’s had to play for 3 different defensive coordinators in the same amount of years, and at the same time, he’s had to change his weight in all 3 years too!! There’s no player, especially a young player this early in his career gonna be able to play as good as he can, when he has to go through what Mazi has went through!! I don’t think anybody in the history of the NFL has ever had to go through what Mazi went through in his first 3 years in the NFL!! So as much as I believe in Mazi, and would hate to see him go, I have to agree that he mite just be better off playing for a team that’s gonna let him be him and play at the weight he feels more comfortable playing at!! I really believe that if he can get back to his college weight, he can be a dominant DT in the NFL!! He just needs to play for a defensive coordinator that’s gonna let him keep his weight up!!