(Editor’s Note: Time to check the mail! The DallasCowboys.com staff writers answer your questions here in ‘Mailbag’ presented by Miller Lite.)<\/p>\n
Were you surprised Tyler Booker didn’t play in the first preseason game, the only healthy first-round pick in the NFL who didn’t? I get they want to protect their starters, but doesn’t he need experience before the games really matter? \u2013 Adrian Walker\/Little Rock, AR<\/p>\n
Nick: Surprised? Yes, a little. Shocked? Not really. Seeing Booker walk out without pads like some of the other starters made my eyebrows raise a little, but I can see both sides to this one.<\/p>\n
Yes, he’s a rookie who absolutely needs to play. I’ve always said the best way to learn how to play football … is to play football. He needs the reps, as does the entire offensive line. But at the same time, he’s also a starter, and there’s really not a question about that. Just like the other projected starters, Booker didn’t play. And I get it, people could go back and forth all day long about the fact that he’s a rookie and has never taken a meaningful snap against the fact that he’s a starter and could get hurt.<\/p>\n
I’ve heard the comparison to second-round pick Donovan Ezeirauku, who did play a few snaps. But to me, he’s not the starter on the depth chart and maybe won’t be for a while. When you look at pass-rushers, you’ve got Micah, Fowler, Sam Williams, Kneeland and then EZE. So the risk just isn’t the same as putting Booker out there when he’s already your second-best guard behind Tyler Smith and he’s the starting right guard. I say all of this to say this – I’ll be shocked if Booker doesn’t get a single snap in the preseason at all. This game vs. Baltimore makes the most sense to me.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"(Editor’s Note: Time to check the mail! The DallasCowboys.com staff writers answer your questions here in ‘Mailbag’ presented…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":282497,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[7,417,16139,4661,1900,6],"class_list":{"0":"post-282496","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nfl","8":"tag-football","9":"tag-news-all-news","10":"tag-news-kurt-daniels","11":"tag-news-mailbag","12":"tag-news-nick-eatman","13":"tag-nfl"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/115016545471398366","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/282496","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=282496"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/282496\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/282497"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=282496"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=282496"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=282496"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}