One would be hard-pressed to find a more formidable interior offensive line trio than the Dallas Cowboys' Tyler Smith, Cooper Beebe and Tyler Booker. With those three players out there in the middle of the trenches, Brian Schottenheimer's offense isn't going to have much trouble this year.
But as this team and fanbase learned yet again last season, injuries are a guarantee in the NFL. Depth will be tested, and a lot of times, teams win or go far in the postseason because they have strong enough second- and third-stringers to survive the inevitable loss of a key starter or two.
It's a good thing, then, that Dallas' interior offensive line depth looks not only light-years ahead of where it was last season, but downright good. And it's making the roster picture much harder to predict here with cutdown day rapidly approaching.
Cowboys' IOL depth is starting to look like a hard math problem
Obviously, Smith, Beebe, Booker, Tyler Guyton and Terence Steele are roster locks. We can comfortably throw T.J. Bass and (most likely) rookie Drew Shelton in there as well. But the Cowboys actually have more rosterable players than spots available, which is a tremendous problem to have.
On the interior, Nick Leverett and Ajani Cornelius both look worthy of a roster spot, and Nate Thomas is sure to lock one up as well. But Dallas can't keep 10 players in its offensive line room, especially if it intends to keep three quarterbacks. Someone has to be a casualty of there not being enough space.
Should it be Leverett? His meteoric rise this offseason can't be ignored by this staff, and not only can he play all three spots on the interior, but he's performed so well this preseason, ceding not as much as a quarterback hurry and blocking incredibly well in the run game from the center spot.
Through two preseason games, Leverett's overall Pro Football Focus grade is 74.6, with 72.2 and 75.5 marks as a run- and pass-blocker, respectively. He has grown tremendously since this time last year, particularly in pass protection, so there's no chance he ends up back in Dallas if he goes to waivers.
Cornelius has also made quite an impression with his transition to guard this offseason, as he's been mauling defenders in the run game. His overall PFF grade of 84.2 and run-blocking grade of 84.1 are dramatically up from last year's 63.1 ratings in both facets.
When it comes to pass blocking, Cornelius has struggled a bit more with players on the interior, giving up three hurries in two games and seeing his grade in this aspect drop, albeit not drastically or to a bad place. Considering he was a draft pick just last year, Cornelius has a case to stick around.
The Cowboys are going to have to make a ruthless cut on their interior OL
Could Thomas end up on the outside looking in? With the way that Shelton has been playing, probably not. Cornelius can always kick out to tackle again in a pinch, as can Smith, but neither of those is a preferable option. You want everyone playing the spots in which they thrive the most.
So, the Cowboys have some difficult decisions to make here by Sunday evening, and that's a good thing. Good teams have roster squeezes like this where they have to leave out a good player. It comes with the territory, and it's the kind of roster problem the Cowboys want.
It won't be any easier on cutdown day, though, when the pen has to hit the paper and Jones and Schottenheimer realize they have more talented players than spots available. Let's hope that, in some capacity, everyone sticks around in Dallas. But there are zero guarantees that it'll unfold that way.
Welcome back to being good and having depth!
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