Matt Zemek
\n\u00a0|\u00a0 UCLA Wire<\/p>\n
Seventh-round NFL draft picks face an uphill battle in the attempt to stick on a 53-man NFL roster. Jay Toia of the Dallas Cowboys<\/a> might be about to buck the odds. Cowboys Wire has more:<\/a><\/p>\n “Jay Toia might be the only actual run-stuffing defensive tackle on the team. Mazi Smith could take a third-year jump, but he is no longer a 330-pound player. Toia is a 340-pound big-bodied interior defender, and the team lacks anyone else to fill that type of role. The Cowboys tend to keep their draft picks, but have cut seventh-round prospects in the past. Toia will not be one of those players. Dallas doesn’t have enough options at defensive tackle to lose Toia to waivers.”<\/p>\n Jay Toia is clearly benefiting from flaws in the Cowboys’ overall process of roster construction. Toia happens to occupy a position and role for which Dallas did not build or develop any depth. Seventh-round NFL draft picks are meant to provide options, but usually as a Plan B or Plan C. Jay Toia might wind up being the Cowboys’ Plan A.<\/p>\n There is certainly some irony here: The Cowboys — who have not been to the NFC Championship Game in nearly 30 years, the longest drought of any NFC team — are mismanaging their roster so badly that a seventh-round pick suddenly becomes a favorite to make the 53-man roster.<\/p>\n Jay Toia isn’t in a position to complain, that’s for sure.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Matt Zemek \u00a0|\u00a0 UCLA Wire Seventh-round NFL draft picks face an uphill battle in the attempt to stick…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":250058,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[323,247,265,322,20844,518,324,230,229,257,7,20842,11005,7541,248,826,267,88,6,15,2383,9,266,517,666],"class_list":{"0":"post-250057","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nfl-draft","8":"tag-323","9":"tag-american","10":"tag-american-football","11":"tag-big","12":"tag-big-10-hub","13":"tag-bruins","14":"tag-conference","15":"tag-cowboys","16":"tag-dallas","17":"tag-dallas-cowboys","18":"tag-football","19":"tag-hub","20":"tag-mazi","21":"tag-mazi-smith","22":"tag-national","23":"tag-national-football-conference","24":"tag-national-sports","25":"tag-news","26":"tag-nfl","27":"tag-nfl-draft","28":"tag-smith","29":"tag-sports","30":"tag-sports-news","31":"tag-ucla","32":"tag-ucla-bruins"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/114946635704443437","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/250057","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=250057"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/250057\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/250058"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=250057"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=250057"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=250057"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}