“I think it’s great for me and great for him as a player,” Smith said. “I think just being able to go against somebody every day that’s going to push you to be your best and like, there is going to be times when you win. There’s going to be times when you lose. But ultimately what are you learning form that rep? What are you learning from those experiences? And that’s something even in year five, and he’s [year eight], that’s something that we’re both learning and both going through.”<\/p>\n
Are these the best interior defensive linemen Smith has faced during camp to get ready for a season?<\/p>\n
“I absolutely feel that way,” Smith said. “I feel like all my years in the league, and I’ve had great interior d-linemen, don’t get me wrong. We had Osa [Odighizuwa], Linval [Joseph], [Jonathan] Hankins, all those guys. I feel like these guys are really extremely talented players. I feel like they’re top tier. I feel like this is the best work you can possibly get.”<\/p>\n
Speaking of the best work possible, Smith has been getting all of his work at left guard, where he’s been an All-Pro and Pro Bowler over the course of his career. After starting at left tackle in the Cowboys’ final three games of 2025, there was a conversation about moving Smith to left tackle. Since then, he’s gotten clarity from Brian Schottenheimer that the team’s preference is to keep him at left guard.<\/p>\n
“Just having that clarity, I don’t think we should ever ease our minds, because anything could happen,” Smith said. “Guys go up, guys go down, ultimately, you’ve got to be ready and playing many different positions. I do think just knowing what he wants, that definitely helps me out.”<\/p>\n
As Smith pointed out however, he does have to be ready for anything and could be asked to slide over in a heartbeat. Still, he’s confident in his fellow namesake Tyler Guyton to hold his own at left tackle, which he seems to be doing after Brian Schottenheimer said Tuesday he’d be sticking with the first team at the position.<\/p>\n
“I think we’ve got to stay ready for anything,” Smith said. “I’ll just say this, I have the utmost confidence in Tyler. Not everybody sees it, but we work together in the summer, we work together in the offseason, the body of work he’s put forward, I feel like it’s going to pay dividends and people are going to truly see who he is.”<\/p>\n
With all 11 starters returning from a year ago and the potential for positional moves on the offensive line seemingly in the rear view mirror, the focus now for Dallas’ offense is to continue to evolve.<\/p>\n
“I think just getting better every day,” Smith said. “I think you do great things, you have good days, you have bad days, but let’s keep stringing together those good days. Let’s just get really consistent in what we do and how we do it, and ultimately consistency will stand the test of time.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"“I think it’s great for me and great for him as a player,” Smith said. “I think just…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":964408,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2066],"tags":[230,229,257,2461,94906,126184,7,417,1901,6,1498],"class_list":["post-964407","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-dallas-cowboys","tag-cowboys","tag-dallas","tag-dallas-cowboys","tag-dallascowboys","tag-featured-offseason-2026","tag-featured-training-camp-central","tag-football","tag-news-all-news","tag-news-tommy-yarrish","tag-nfl","tag-tyler-smith"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/117039846170007576","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/964407","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=964407"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/964407\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/964408"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=964407"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=964407"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=964407"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}