Blogging The Boys
There are several players who fit the “jenga piece” criteria for the 2025 Dallas Cowboys.
An idea that interests me when talking about professional football teams and their rosters is figuring out who are the jenga pieces. This idea served as our discussion prompt here at BTB last Thursday. In case you missed that or are unaware of what a jenga piece is, here is the 101.
A popular board game (for lack of a better term) is Jenga. The rules of the game are that you have to stack wooden blocks and build as tall of a tower as you can. Once you use all of the blocks you have to remove pieces from the tower you have constructed to build your tower even higher. The trick is that you have to remove pieces carefully and ultimately make the right decision as to which ones you do want to remove so that the tower does not come tumbling down.
Relative to a football roster, we are on the hunt for which Dallas Cowboys players are the critical ones within the structure of the tower. We are talking about the players whom without the whole thing would tumble down. To be clear we are establishing right now that the position of quarterback is uniquely important and that without it the tower does not exist, so we are talking about non-quarterback options.
In terms of the 2025 version of the Dallas Cowboys there are five names that stand out.
Ultimately the answer is probably one of two people and that you can sway me in either direction depending on the day or moment. One of these two is second-year left tackle Tyler Guyton.
It makes sense to not panic over Guyton’s lack of an All-Pro first year in the NFL. For so long we were spoiled by the likes of Tyron Smith, Travis Frederick and Zack Martin that we forgot what normal was like for even really, really good offensive line prospects. It takes time, generally speaking, to adjust to the professional level.
Understanding this, so much hinges on Guyton being the guy at left tackle in 2025. We are way past the point of considering Tyler Smith for that spot so this is sort of a situation where it is either going to work or not and the latter is not an option that we want to learn the outcome of.
Given that Guyton is charged with protecting Dak Prescott’s blind spot he holds an extreme level of importance. He is a foundational member to the team and so much of what they are going to do rests upon his shoulders.
This is the other top option and both feel a little bit like cheating since they are extensions to and insurances around the play of the quarterback. Such is life for a team’s left tackle and top pass-catching option.
We have said forever and ever how the Cowboys not having a...
