Cowboys left guard Tyler Smith is set to miss extended time after having thumb surgery and the team replaced him on the active roster on Wednesday.
Smith was placed on injured reserve and the Cowboys signed offensive lineman Nick Leverett off of their practice squad to fill the opening on the 53-man roster.
Leverett played guard and center for Dallas during the preseason and he appeared in one game for the team last season. He has also appeared in 21 games for the Cardinals, Patriots and Buccaneers.
The Cowboys also announced that they have signed veteran guard Laken Tomlinson to the practice squad.
Smith is expected to miss 4-6 weeks as he recovers. T.J. Bass is set to start at left guard in his place.
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After the Cowboys signed Von Miller last month, their owner Jerry Jones said that he would be open to making a trade “if we saw an opportunity to take a little of the future and put it on this team.”
It’s been a frequent theme for Jones and it was one he returned to during an appearance on 105.3 The Fan on Tuesday morning. The Cowboys freed up $19 million in cap space last week by restructuring the contracts of defensive tackle Kenny Clark, cornerback DaRon Bland, and tight end Jake Ferguson, which some saw as a sign that the Cowboys were making room for a new addition and Jones didn’t throw any cold water on that notion.
“It certainly can be used for this year’s team and the timing sure is pretty conspicuously obvious . . . That does show that we have really viable serious room financially to make trade if we wanted to right now,” Jones said.
Jones did not indicate that any trade is imminent, but said the Cowboys are “in play” to make a move and said that it would likely be to add to the defensive side of the ball. The first weeks of the season could help determine just how hard Jones and company will push to swing a deal that could help their chances of ending a three-decade Super Bowl drought in Dallas.
The Cowboys showed how much they valued T.J. Bass as a reserve offensive lineman by using a second-round restricted free agent tender to hold onto him this offseason and Bass will get an immediate chance to show the wisdom of that decision.
Bass will step in as the team’s left guard while Tyler Smith is out of action due to thumb surgery. Smith is expected to miss 4-6 weeks as a result of the procedure and head coach Brian Schottenheimer said on Monday that the team is not expecting a major drop in play with Bass in the lineup.
“Tyler Smith’s a great player, but we feel really confident in T.J., and he’s put great film on here,” Schottenheimer said, via the team’s website. “He’s played next to Cooper Beebe, he’s played next to [Tyler] Guyton, so that’s nothing new, the communication and all that stuff. . . . We tendered him the way we tendered him because we trust this guy as a football player. He’s a damn good football player that unfortunately is just playing behind a lot of really, really good players. So we have great confidence in T.J.”
Bass has started 10 games over the last three seasons and he’ll have a chance to show he’s ready for a full-time role in the starting lineup for Dallas or someone else in the coming weeks.
The Cowboys are going to be missing a starting offensive lineman for the first chunk of the regular season.
Head coach Brian Schottenheimer told reporters at a Monday press conference that left guard Tyler Smith is going to have thumb surgery. Smith is expected to miss 4-6 weeks as a result of the operation.
Smith is set to go on injured reserve, so the Cowboys will be able to replace him on the active roster. They open the season against the Giants on Sunday night and then face the Commanders, Ravens, Texans, Buccaneers, and Packers in the first six weeks of the season.
TJ Bass is set to fill in at left guard until Smith is able to return to action.
Sunday night’s game between the Giants and the Cowboys will provide a chance for Greg Newsome and George Pickens to renew their relationship.
The two men last faced off when Newsome was a Browns cornerback and Pickens was a Steelers wide receiver during the 2024 season. On a Hail Mary attempt at the end of a 24-19 Browns win in Week 12, Newsome and Pickens wrestled with each other and then continued their scuffle after the ball fell incomplete.
The physical interaction morphed into a battle of words, but Pickens missed the second game between the AFC North teams with a hamstring injury and the two players never met last season. They’ll be back on the same field this week and Newsome downplayed the idea of having unfinished business while acknowledging the history between the players adds to the matchup.
“I wouldn’t say that,” Newsome said, via Pat Leonard of the New York Daily News. “I would just say every receiver I go against there’s technically unfinished business. My job is to shut them out no matter what. Obviously I’ve had a lot of battles with him, so it’s gonna be a little more special. But my job is to shut them out.”
Newsome praised Pickens as being “great at the catch point” and also noted how good CeeDee Lamb is before adding that “I like our chances” of winning the game. That would be just the start to the John Harbaugh era that the Giants are looking for in Week 1.
The Cowboys have two defensive captains this season, and both were acquired by trading Micah Parsons.
Kenny Clark and Quinnen Williams are the Cowboys’ defensive captains. A year ago, the Cowboys traded Parsons to the Packers for Clark and two first-round picks, and later they traded one of those picks to the Jets for Williams.
Cowboys head coach Brian Schottenheimer singled out Williams as a leader who has meant a lot to the team.
“From the minute he got here, he’s been about one thing, and it’s winning,” Schottenheimer said of Williams. “He’s never won in the NFL and the leadership is real, the talent is incredible, but every decision that guy makes is based on what’s best for us winning. I love that about him, and it’s infectious. It rubs off. I love hearing him talk to the young linemen, the young defenders.”
Unsurprisingly, quarterback Dak Prescott is the offensive captain and kicker Brandon Aubrey is the special teams captain. Schottenheimer said the players voted on the captains, and those four players were overwhelmingly the top vote getters.
“All player voting, and that’s what I think makes it such an awesome, incredible designation, that you get voted on by the players, your peers, your brothers,” Schottenheimer said. “Those guys were clearly the four highest, and that spoke volumes to me when I looked at the numbers.”
When the Cowboys waived quarterback Joe Milton, they knew they wanted him back on the practice squad, but they weren’t sure if another team would claim him on waivers, or persuade him to join a different practice squad. For coach Brian Schottenheimer, Milton deciding to stay in Dallas was great news.
“When he informed me he’s coming back, I was elated,” Schottenheimer said. “This is a guy that’s worked his butt off to get where he is, developed the way he’s developed. The talent is so rare. When you’re waived — I’ve been fired many times — you’re in shock a little bit. Then you step back and you didn’t see it coming, but you start figuring out the positives and negatives of the situation. For him to be able to stay here with the relationships he’s built, understanding our system, understanding the locker room, the other coaches, we were thrilled to get him back and he’s going to continue to get better.”
Schottenheimer knows there’s always a chance that some other team will sign Milton away for its active roster.
“Quarterback rooms around the league are pretty crowded right now, but he’s certainly talented enough to get claimed. It’s our good fortune that he wasn’t,” Schottenheimer said.
Milton’s size, speed and arm strength make him a very attractive prospect, even if so far he hasn’t put it all together to develop into a starting quarterback. The Cowboys think he’s going to keep developing and they’re glad he’s doing it in Dallas.
Cowboys outside linebacker Von Miller and his teammate, Hunter Luepke, were playing a game of chicken with the No. 40. Miller wanted it; Luepke, a fullback, has had it since 2023.
Both wore the number in training camp, but a decision had to be made Thursday about who would wear 40 in the regular season since the NFL doesn’t allow for duplicate numbers.
Miller finally blinked, giving up a percentage of his chicken company in exchange for the number he wore in high school, college and with the Rams and Bills. Luepke will switch to 30.
“You got to give Hunter a great [shout] out,” Miller said, via Jon Machota of TheAthletic.com. “He’s learned from the best with the negotiators here with the Cowboys. It went down to the final hour, but we were able to get it done. I don’t want to get into the details of it, but I’m happy to say he’s my business partner. He’s a part owner of Greener Pastures Chicken. The chicken of champions.”
Patrick Mahomes, Drew Brees and Nick Foles are among other current and former players who have a stake in the USDA-certified organic poultry processing facility in Elgin, Texas.
“[Luepke] was a great fit for us,” said Miller, who majored in poultry science at Texas A&M. “It was a great fit for him. I’m happy that we were able to get it done.”
With the regular season approaching, the Cowboys have maneuvered to create some extra cap space.
Via Todd Archer of ESPN, the team has restructured the contracts of defensive tackle Kenny Clark, cornerback DaRon Bland, and tight end Jake Ferguson.
The moves have created more than $19 million in additional 2026 cap space. Previously, the Cowboys had approximately $14.2 million in spending room.
With more than $30 million in 2026 cap space now on hand, the Cowboys have plenty of space to absorb a veteran contract (or two) via trade.
Coincidentally, or not, Raiders defensive end Maxx Crosby has a 2026 base salary of $30 million.
Just saying.
Not even a month ago, Cowboys executive vice president Stephen Jones called it “realistic” for the team to think it can keep CeeDee Lamb and George Pickens long term. This week, Jones admitted keeping both wide receivers beyond 2026 will be challenging.
“I don’t know of any teams that really can pay two top receivers top of the market, so that’s gonna be a real difficult situation as we move forward,” Jones told the DLLS Cowboys podcast. “We’ve managed to figure out how we can do it for this year. If everything works out the way we think it is, [in] which CeeDee and George both have huge years again, then it’ll be a bigger challenge next year.”
Before the 2024 season, Lamb signed a four-year, $136 million extension. His $34 million annual average ranks sixth at the position.
Pickens will play this season under the one-year, $27.3 million franchise tag. He is coming off a career year when he made 93 catches for 1,429 yards and nine touchdowns.
“George is really wanting to put back-to-back years on top of one another, so it’ll help his market,” Jones said. “And certainly, I know at some point -- as does every player in this league -- will want to be rewarded with a long-term contract. So that certainly puts pressure on us to have a unique situation there at wide receiver.”
The Bengals managed to pay Ja’Marr Chase (four-year, $161 million extension signed in 2025) and Tee Higgins (four-year, $115 million extension signed in 2025), and the Eagles paid A.J. Brown and DeVonta Smith before trading Brown this offseason. But Pickens will want — and will deserve — more than Higgins or Smith if he has another year like last year.
The Cowboys hope they face that problem in the offseason, because that will mean Lamb and Pickens both had solid seasons again.
“[Cowboys defensive coordinator] Christian Parker will tell you, who went against us twice a year, what a challenge that it was for the Eagles when they played us, and he was on the defensive side of the ball trying to defend Dak [Prescott] and those two receivers,” Jones said.
