4 Players the Dallas Cowboys need to cut before 2021

1. Jaylon Smith, Linebacker

This one would hurt because there would be a lot of dead money, but that doesn’t mean it shouldn’t be done. Once one of the feel-good stories of this team, Jaylon Smith was taken in the second round of the 2016 NFL Draft despite there being legitimate concern about his ability to ever play again. Smith suffered a horrific knee injury in his final collegiate game for the Notre Dame Fighting Irish and that caused him to miss his entire rookie season.

Smith fought back in 2017 and got on the field but was still struggling with ‘drop foot’ and had to play with an AFO brace. In 2018, he shed the brace and was fantastic for Dallas. That led to the team giving him a five-year extension that added $64 million to his contract.

Since signing that deal, Smith has taken a nosedive on the field. He’s been bad at maintaining his gap discipline, gets beat in pass coverage, and takes far too many bad angles. Over the past year and a half, he has become the biggest liability on the team’s defense and they need to move on in 2021 if they hope to improve.

Of course, due to that massive contract, it won’t be easy. Dallas painted themselves in a corner when they extended Smith early (just one of many contract gaffes in recent seasons), but that doesn’t mean it cannot be done.

K.D. Drummond of Cowboys Wire breaks down the science behind cutting Smith, and as he says, it’s possible to do if they allocate him as one of their two post-June 1 cuts. They would still have dead money in 2021 and 2022, but they could free up some space as well, while eliminating what has become a major problem for them.

Smith has become a liability on the Cowboys defense and it’s clear he doesn’t fit in Mike Nolan’s scheme. Unless they plan to make another coaching change, this is probably the best way to go in 2021.