Jaylon Smith doesn’t even know where his ankle-foot orthosis (AFO) brace is anymore. The Cowboys linebacker just knows he’s not wearing it.
“Everything just feels better, from my emotion to my quickness to my explosiveness to my overall knowledge of the game,’' Smith said Wednesday, via David Moore of the Dallas Morning News. “It’s all about God’s timing and going to continue to get better in that race to 100 percent. It’s out of my hands, out of everyone’s hands.
“We’re just going to continue to ride.’'
The Cowboys knew when they drafted Smith with a second-round pick in 2016 it would take time for him to return to health. He tore the ACL in his left knee and damaged the peroneal nerve on January 1, 2016, in his final game at Notre Dame. It left him unable to lift his left foot toward his shin.
Twenty-nine months later, Smith is moving “more like myself.”
“Maybe more than anything else, I think he’s moving more spontaneously now,’' Cowboys coach Jason Garrett said. “You see him maybe get in a compromising position and react his way out of it physically maybe better than he had before.”
