Dallas Cowboys: Should this position worry fans the most?
The Dallas Cowboys have had a legendary player on the field for several years. Without him, should fans be worried about the immediate future of the position?
No one can ever replace Jason Witten. The stalwart tight end ended his stellar 15-year career abruptly last month, leaving the Dallas Cowboys terribly underprepared to fill his void.
The Cowboys have attempted to find a successor for their future Hall of Fame tight end several times throughout the years. Players like Martellus Bennett, Gavin Escobar and Anthony Fasano have all wilted in the massive shadow cast by Witten in Dallas.
Now, the Cowboys find themselves with many developmental players at the tight end position with next to no regular season experience. Witten’s late exodus hurt Dallas’ ability to replace him, being nearly two months into free agency already and with original retirement rumors emerging on Day Two of the NFL draft.
The current depth chart at tight end in Dallas includes Geoff Swaim, Blake Jarwin, Rico Gathers and fourth round rookie Dalton Schultz.
Swaim is a former seventh round pick out of Texas in 2015. Scheduled to be a free agent in 2019, the fourth-year tight end has the only real regular season experience of the bunch. Although Swaim has only posted a total of nine receptions for 94-yards in the past three years.
Jarwin was a undrafted rookie free agent out of Oklahoma State in 2017 whom the Cowboys like so much they promoted him from the practice squad to the active roster after rumors of another team being interested in him surfaced. He played a total of 12 snaps last year without recording a single stat. Nine of those snaps were on special teams.
Gathers took the Cowboys fandom by storm last preseason, recording two touchdowns in his first two preseason games. The former Baylor basketball star was making strides in his development last year until he suffered a concussion that landed him on Injured Reserve.
Finally, there’s Schultz. A two-year starter at Stanford, the 6-foot-5, 244 pound tight end was one of the better all-around prospects at his position in this year’s draft class. Schultz played in a run-first offense in college, which should translate well to the Cowboys similar offensive strategy.
Maybe more worrisome is the fact that a first-time tight ends coach is in charge of this inexperienced group. Doug Nussmeier is a former NFL quarterback who has been either an offensive coordinator or QB coach from 2001-2017, mostly at the college level. Nussmeier did have a two-year stint as the quarterbacks coach for the St. Louis Rams under current Cowboys offensive coordinator Scott Linehan.
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Should Dallas Cowboys fans be worried about the tight end position this season? Absolutely. This is one of the most inexperienced positional groups in the entire NFL being lead by a first-time tight ends coach. This could certainly turn out to be disastrous for America’s Team and a position that will likely be viewed as the Achilles’ heel of this offense.