Dallas Cowboys: What’s with the offensive line?

The Dallas Cowboys have more cap space tied up in the offensive line than any other position group and they’re not getting a return on that investment

In a day where passing the ball is paramount, the Dallas Cowboys have turned back the clock. With every other franchise focused on getting a great quarterback and receivers to stretch the field, head coach Jason Garrett wants a run-first team that wins with a massive offensive line.

To their credit, they’ve gone out and gotten some talented players. There are three first round picks, a second round pick, and one undrafted free agent who was supposed to be a first-round pick before an off-field incident popped up before the draft — to be fair La’el Collins was just a victim of bad timing and was found to do no wrong.

Tyron Smith — $17,545,00
Travis Frederick — $6,275,000
Zack Martin — $6,000,000
La’el Collins — $5,758,333

That’s over $35 million invested in four offensive linemen — and another $1 million on Connor Williams, who is on his rookie deal.

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Yes, Frederick is out for the time being, but even so, that’s still roughly $30 million worth of money on the field for one season — and this is a low season for Martin who is about to get roughly $15 million a year from 2019 on.

With that kind of investment and a No. 4 overall pick at running back, they should be able to run on anyone. Then when they go to throw, the quarterback should have time on the pocket. On Sunday, that just didn’t happen.

Ezekiel Elliott finished with just 69 yards and, had it not been for a couple long runs, it would have looked much worse. As for the quarterback, Dak Prescott had no time to work with. He was sacked six times and under pressure more often than you could count.

It wasn’t just the pressure either. Penalties from Tyron Smith and La’el Collins were back-breakers — which is unacceptable from the unit that’s supposed to be the face of your franchise.

Before overreacting too much, it’s only a Week 1 loss and the team didn’t get enough time together in the preseason — that’s on the coaches. But they’ve done this before, most notably when the line couldn’t hold it together without Smith in 2017.

There were also plenty of other players to place the blame on from Prescott to the receivers. Still, this offensive line is supposed to pave the way and far too often they come out and don’t set the tone like they’re supposed to.

Hopefully, moving forward they can because they’re getting paid an awful lot of money to do just that.