I am going to keep ramming my head against the wall here. After watching two preseason games and the third about to happen tonight, every single week it shows its ugly face.
The Dallas Cowboys have a major issue with depth on the offensive line and, heck, their starting right tackle is not good either, but here we are again.
Look, the season is about to start to hammering on some of these topics between three writers can be a good thing. We all see a common issue on the offensive side of the ball.
Biggest Issues?
Outside of Steele being the starting right tackle and continuing to get worked every single day in drills, I don’t think the team has their current backup swing tackle on the roster, and that is another issue.
One other thing to note, take a look at the transaction wire, nobody is cutting starting caliber offensive tackles, and for the Cowboys that is a major issue.
It is not like they can just wait until they do their round of cuts and dumb whomever they want, and go look at the wire, pick up the phone and get the average guy in the building. It just hasn’t shaken out like that this summer.
A few weeks ago, I thought Drew Shelton would be able to help the issue, but did you see how poorly he performed in the last preseason games against the Cardinals?
In case you missed it, he struggled pretty badly on Saturday.
His 47.9 grade was easily the lowest of any Cowboys offensive lineman who played at least 10 snaps.
Pass protection remains a massive concern for Shelton. Across 25 pass-blocking snaps, he surrendered four pressures, two hurries, and a sack. The result? A 3.0 pass-blocking grade from PFF. Not 30.0. He had a THREE.
Injuries to guys on the offensive line happen all season long for every single team, and it is hard to believe that after last year, I am more worried about the play of the offensive line than the defensive line. It is crazy!
Nate Thomas is not the answer either. He was competing for the job with Tyler Guyton and even for as bad as Guyton was a year ago, the gab between the two showed it’s face early, and they moved Nate to the other side, and he still struggled when he was battling Steele.
They just do not have a guy that can come in if needed for a quarter or two if someone goes down and needs a half or even a game to recover. One of those two is going to make the roster and have to be the guy, but man, are the Cowboys gambling with this issue?
This week, Cowboys beat writer Nick Harris of the Fort Worth Star-Telegram noted that Steele has been the worst of the linemen when it comes to pass protection, and that he has been a consistent source of pressure on quarterback Dak Prescott.
Consider the pressures and sacks (per PFF) Steele allowed in his first three seasons: 2020, 48 pressures, nine sacks; 2021, 31 pressures, two sacks; and 2022, 20 pressures, 1 sack.
After returning from the ACL tear: 2023, 56 pressures, eight sacks; 2024, 41 pressures, nine sacks; 2025, 52 pressures, six sacks.
@nickeatman on @1053SS and @BobbyBeltTX: “If Terence Steele isn’t the guy that they’re going to start at right tackle, I would imagine it’s somebody that’s not on the team…”
It all comes down to him just needing to get things together, because, man, this summer gave me no confidence in any of the guys behind him to come in and not be awful. There is no swing tackle you can trust on the roster.
The regular season starts in what, 15-16 days? They have to work with what they have on the roster, and this was a major gamble they played with this summer thinking they could get some of these guys to work out, they drafted Shelton in the 4th round, so it is hard to be mad at it.
They used the correct three picks on defense, so we will see how things play out, but I am worried about parts of this offensive line.
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