Dallas Cowboys insider provides clarity on Tyler Smith controversy stemming from unexpected thumb injury landing him on IR
Did the Dallas Cowboys mismanage Tyler Smith’s thumb injury? Not quite, according to the reporting from insider Bryan Broaddus and the comments by Jerry Jones.
So, why wait until now? That’s the question many Dallas Cowboys fans and media members are asking after head coach Brian Schottenheimer announced Tyler Smith is undergoing thumb surgery and heading to Injured Reserve.
It’s a fair question. Particularly because Schottenheimer admitted the Cowboys don’t quite know when the injury happened and acknoledged Smith tried to play through it.
“You always see if you can kind of play through these thing,” Schottenheimer told reporters. “He’s done things like that, like a lot of guys have. They’ve been able to play through them.”
But that doesn’t quite answer the biggest question: Did the Cowboys mismanage this? Did Smith stubbornly try to push through it? Did the training staff make a mistake? Or is this simply a matter of really unfortunate timing?
These questions remain mostly unanswered. However, Cowboys insider Bryan Broaddus of 105.3 The Fan and Crown Global Media provided some clarity on Tuesday morning.
Cowboys insider provides clarity on Tyler Smith injury
“Team has had two padded practices since they returned from (Arizona),” Broaddus posted on X. “Would be hard for them to discover there was an issue with the thumb without more work. It also appears the thumb was injured while the team was back at The Star and not earlier. Reason why fixing now.”
As much as Cowboys fans want to find someone to blame for this unfortunate development, Broaddus’ reporting sure makes it sound like it was just bad timing.
Smith didn’t play in the preseason, so if the Cowboys had only two practices after the Arizona game and the injury happened since then, when was the team supposed to find out he can’t play through it?
Combined with Jerry Jones’ appearance on 105.3 The Fan, it sounds more like he aggravated it upon returning to Frisco, Texas.
Jones said on the radio on Tuesday that the Cowboys “thought it probably was something he could work through when we got back (to The Star) two weeks ago, but he’s probably made that injury to the point we agreed it needs to be fixed for the long haul.”
Though Broaddus’ reporting adds some clarity to the whole thing, he did add an important disclaimer that will stop the controversy from fully going away: “There appears to be a disagreement in the time line here on the injury. Just offering what I have heard.”
This was in all likelihood bad timing combined with an effort to push through it. Sometimes, things like this happen in the NFL and you can’t stop them. Winning teams overcome such injuries. Let’s see if the Cowboys are that.
