Dallas Cowboys  $90 Million Star Player Depart After Shoulder Surgery…

Dallas Cowboys defensive tackle Mazi Smith, a disappointment as first-round pick in 2023, is out until training camp after undergoing shoulder surgery

With things tight against the salary cap causing the Dallas Cowboys to lose two defensive tackles in free agency The Dallas Cowboys are counting on a big second year from Mazi Smith. They need him. With Neville Gallimore going to the Miami Dolphins and Jonathan Hankins going to the Seattle Seahawks in free agency, the Cowboys’ tight salary cap is going to cause the franchise to get creative.

But Smith, a disappointment as rookie in 2023 after being picked in the first round out of Michigan, is already facing an uphill battle. He underwent shoulder surgery after the season and will be sidelined from 4-to-6 months, per coach Mike McCarthy. Smith should be ready for the start of training camp.

“I’m looking for Mazi to take that step. No bones about it,” McCarthy said. “Now if you just look at the dynamics of the room and obviously we’ll continue to add to that room, but he’s going to have a lot more opportunity in front of him. He’s definitely one of the guys that needs to take that big second year jump and I think he’ll do that.” The Cowboys don’t know when the shoulder issue developed, but they believe it impacted his ability to perform as a rookie.

Add in Smith inexplicably losing weight, going from a 337-pound run stuffer to under 300 pounds in a failed effort to handle the responsibilities of the NFL game. He played just 28 percent of the plays on defense in 17 games in 2023 and recorded only 13 tackles. Smith was on the field for just four snaps in the 48-32 season-ending playoff loss to the Green Bay Packers. The Cowboys are counting on him to start in 2024. He is putting the weight back on. But rather than training in the offseason, he will spend the bulk of the next few months rehabbing.

“He lost some weight,” McCarthy said. “Last year was a big adjustment for him so I think there’s a lot that goes into the transition that these guys make. He’s not immune to that. I think now that he’ll have a better plan and we need to help him with that plan to be at the proper weight and maintain it.” It is not an ideal turn of events for the Cowboys who need their young players to step up in place of veteran free agent departures. Smith’s setback was only compounded in the last week by an injury to tight end Luke Schoonmaker, a 2023 second-round pick out of Michigan as well who also also had a disappointing rookie season.

hoomaker suffered a shoulder injury training last week and was also forced to undergo surgery that will keep him sidelined until the start of training camp in August. Schoonmaker caught just eight passes for 65 yards as rookie in 2023.

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Ryan Clark wildly likens Dak Prescott’s Cowboys situation to ‘The Bachelorette’

Jerry Jones isn’t ready to give Dak Prescott the final rose.

With the Cowboys holding off on a contract extension for their star quarterback as he enters the final year of an expiring deal, the move has befuddled many around the league, with E“When you’re an organization, you can play the field at the quarterback position. You can have three of them on the roster sometimes, two of them on the roster sometimes, you can draft one this year, you can draft one that year,” Clark began on “Get Up” on Wednesday, “it’s like a single man who’s going to college at LSU, he could just live it up and date who he wants. But at some point, he’s going to decide he wants a wife. And the bible says, he who finds a wife finds a good thing, it’s the same thing in football. He who finds a quarterback finds a good thing,”

SPN’s Ryan Clark likening the situation to being on ABC’s reality TV series “The Bachelorette” following a lengthy union in a wild take.

“And so when you get that quarterback, and you lock into that marriage, and that is your person, you are never going to sit at home and one day tell your person, ‘You can go be on “The Bachelorette.” I don’t love you enough to lock you in’… Jerry Jones has said, Dak, next year, we’re going to let you go on ‘The Bachelorette.’”

The Bachelorette” features the female star dating several suitors before narrowing it down to one, who typically receives the final rose in the season finale after a potential marriage proposal. “The Bachelor” chronicles a male lead going through a similar process with eligible women.

Prescott’s union with the Cowboys began in 2016, when he was selected in the fourth round of the NFL draft and was later named the starting QB. He signed a four-year, $160 million contract extension in 2021.

Though it was reported in December that both parties were expected to iron out the details of a long-term extension in the offseason, NFL Network Insider Ian Rapoport reported Tuesday that the team and Prescott, 30, “have a mutual understanding that there will be no adjustment to his contract entering the 2024 season.”

That decision — which comes two months after yet another early Cowboys playoff exit — could potentially result in Prescott hitting the open market if the two sides decide it’s best to move on.

“When you look at this team, not only are we saying, you have to go out and play a certain way, win a certain amount of games, get us to a certain point for us to keep you, we are also not going to give you the necessary tools to do so. We are essentially giving you a job, giving you a task that we are not equipping you to be able to do,” Clark continued.

“So what does that say? We’re going to get to the end of the season and Dak Prescott is going to be somewhere else.”

Prescott isn’t the only member of the Cowboys entering a critical year ahead.