Something great about the Dallas Cowboys this season was the depth they have on the offensive line. Regardless of if they are a great unit or not, they have more than a handful of players who have started in the NFL before.
With that said, something that slipped through the cracks that I did not see until this weekend was that they lost Matt Hennessy for the season due to a neck injury that happened in the second week of OTAs.
He was signed to replace Brock Hoffman, who provided a reliable backup at both guard and center before he departed in free agency for the Pittsburgh Steelers this offseason.
The Cowboys have agreed to terms with Chris Glaser after the Hennessy injury, a former undrafted free agent signed by the Kansas City Chiefs in 2022, who has since been on a football tour that includes two stints with the New York Jets and a previous stay on the Cowboys’ practice squad in 2023.
They also made the following transactions:
Waived:
DB Corey Ballentine
WR Romello Brinson
Reserve/Injured:
C Matt Hennessy
It’s Important
You might not think that this injury matters, but honestly, with the way that the Dallas offensive line stands today, you have two guys that I don’t think anyone trusts.
The Cowboys still have T.J. Bass as their top backup at guard, but Dallas now has to decide who is going to step in at center if Beebe deals with injury again in 2026 And if there are injuries at both guard and center at any point, the Cowboys will have one less reliable veteran to step into one of those spots.
As you have probably heard, battles have been taking place at left tackle and right tackle, the two weakest links of the offensive line.
Matt was not battling for either of those spots, but Drew Shelton and Nate Thomas have had time against Tyler Guyton and Terence Steele.
Matt going down is the only injury that the team has had thus far, but training camp will soon be here and that is when things really start to get heated before preseason games start shortly after.
The depth on the offensive line is important and the fact that they are going to be down a guy that has been around the league for awhile is not the end of the world, but depth on the offensive line and defensive line are two very important things.
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Other Issues
Not only is losing depth an issue, but so is something else that the starters need to clean up going into next year.
When you take a look at Pro Football Focus, the Cowboys OL led the league with a total of 133 penalties.
The biggest issue is clearly Tyler Guyton and Ternece Steele. Guyton had 7 and Steele had 6. Both of them, as of right now, are projected to be on the starting line once again this year, and they need Guyton to make a year three leap.
Let me say that I would much rather a depth guy get injured than any starter because the Cowboys right now have a pretty good roster, regardless of how bad the defense was a year ago.
They are going to struggle in the secondary, but the defensive line is much better, and the offense is going to be at the top of the league again, so let’s just hope that either Guyton or Steele can figure something out, because they can’t lead the league in those issues as noted above again.
This is not the end of the world, but it seemed like they have most of their depth chart filled and now a guy that is unproven is going to have to step in if one of the starters goes down.
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