Dallas Cowboys fans have a hard time separating the newest member of the maize and blue from a previous lat-first-round draft selection on the defensive line from the same school. Fortunately for them, Mazi Smith and Taco Charlton are different human beings who play different positions under different coaching regimes with different athletic profiles. But what should Cowboys fans reasonably expect from the Michigan DT in Year 1?
Mazi Smith as a Prospect
It probably doesn’t fill Cowboys’ fans with hope that their first-round pick only has half a sack in his three-year collegiate career. Only notching six tackles for loss doesn’t help much, either.
But if you’re into more advanced metrics, you’d see that Smith was just a bit unlucky as a pass rusher. He accumulated 25 total pressures in 2022, despite a role that mostly didn’t ask or allow him to pin his ears back as a pass rusher.
There’s far more to it than the numbers. Smith wasn’t just on Bruce Feldman’s Freak List — he was at the very top of it.
Smith underwhelmed slightly in his explosive testing at the NFL Combine, but his on-field explosiveness and agility were consistently apparent. He wasn’t just on the freak list because of his athletic testing measure but for his strength as well. On the beach press, Smith ended up completing 34 reps of 225 pounds, which ranks in the 94th percentile for defensive linemen.
Smith’s length and rotational strength are also epic. The Wolverines have a rotational strength machine in their weight room that they needed to contact a company to build extenders for, so the team could load more weight than the machine originally allowed.
All because it had become too easy for Smith.
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Because of Smith’s deployment as a gap-and-a-half or two-gap player at Michigan, his strength was consistently on display. But there are plenty of immovable objects that play on the defensive interior that are displaced because of poor leveraging. Smith does a great job of “getting skinny” and reducing his surface area to avoid complete double teams.
And when he’s even somewhat fresh, his hands never, ever stop. Smith’s ability to dissect blocks is ahead of his time. Issues with his anchoring and playmaking ability against the run only came after extended bouts on the field at a time, which is something he won’t have to deal with as a rookie in Dallas. He may not even need to start.
And that’s okay. In fact, it might be his best role as a rookie.
Setting Realistic Expectations
Think about what Osa Odighizuwa gave Dallas early on as a rookie. Smith may not play 40+ snaps immediately, but he’ll immediately provide a spark as an athlete early in his career. Even if he doesn’t start, Dan Quinn’s attacking style on passing downs will allow the 320-pound freak to shoot gaps and play proactively as a pass rusher.
“He got a good role for me,” Smith said of Quinn. “I don’t have to do nothing but be myself and be who I’ve been and continue to grow.”
The best thing about Smith is his versatility. His athleticism will allow Quinn to move him up and down the defensive front, using him anywhere from the 5-technique down to a true nose. Additionally, Smith’s background allows him to help implement more multi-gap deployments on early downs as a B-gap player alongside Johnathan Hankins.
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Run defending isn’t as cut and dry as it’s made out to be. Simply “defending a gap” isn’t about getting your body into the gap and not moving. Defensive linemen must be able to immediately process what blocking scheme the opposition is using and get into the correct positioning immediately.
This all happens in the blink of an eye. But the defender must also maintain good positional leverage to maintain his gap if he’s able to get there, to begin with.
This is why many defensive tackles struggle to make the leap early on at the next level. Look at Dexter Lawrence, Quinnen Williams, Derrick Brown, and even Jordan Davis, for example. It took them time to round into the form that’s made them some of the best two-way interior defenders in the NFL. Davis, who struggled to stay on the field and be totally impactful as a rookie, still needs to take that leap.
But of those players, only Davis was surrounded by the kind of insulation Smith has in Dallas. Even Davis was forced into a starting role when Jonathan Gannon utilized 50 fronts, with Davis playing a true nose role head-up on the opposing center.
Smith should have more freedom to just be an athlete early on. Because he’s a moderately flexible mover to go along with his outrageous explosiveness, he’ll be a danger for opposing lines in Quinn’s extensive stunt packages.
At the end of the day, Smith is still a rookie defensive lineman. He’s never grinded through an entire NFL season. And even though he played several snaps for Michigan, it’s impossible to simulate the grueling nature of facing opposing NFL linemen down in and down out at this level.
Smith will likely hit the rookie wall, just as most rookies do in the back third of the season. Early on, we should see him flash as a disruptive run defender and an explosive pass rusher. Interestingly enough, no rookie interior defender played more than 435 snaps a season ago. The year prior, only Odighizuwa played over 600 snaps as a rookie, with Christian Barmore and Roy Lopez each playing over 500.
Odighizuwa accumulated 37 pressures as a rookie, but only Barmore topped that number over the past three rookie classes. Brown had 34 for Carolina in over 700 snaps the year prior, but Smith likely can only put a dent in that amount of time on the field.
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We don’t know exactly how Quinn will deploy Smith. Maybe he uses that athleticism as a pass-rushing weapon alongside all the smaller rushers on obvious passing downs. Maybe he’ll use him more often as a rotational run defender alongside Hankins or in relief of him. But if I had to guess, I’d bet that Quinn doesn’t want to waste all that freaky athleticism on a multi-gap occasion.
We should see Smith employ his athleticism as a pass rusher. He’ll end up with somewhere between two and five sacks as a rookie. He’ll also end up with between 20 and 30 pressures, while also making 15-20 defensive stops in somewhere around 500 regular-season defensive snaps.
If there’s one thing we’ve learned about the Cowboys over the past two seasons, it’s that we should trust that Quinn can get the most out of the talent he’s accumulated on the defensive side of the ball.
If anything, the selection made Dallas’ best player, Micah Parsons, a very happy camper.
“Look at the text man,” Parsons exclaimed after learning of the pick while participating in an NFL Draft live stream. “I told you Dan [Quinn] wouldn’t let me down man.”
Parsons and Quinn had exchanged texts earlier that day. Parsons texted him, “Michigan DT” to which Quinn replied, “I’m all about that life!!!!!!”
Yes, there were reportedly six exclamations. They are excited about the Michigan DT, and Cowboys fans should be too. Even if it doesn’t happen immediately, everything is there in the toolbox to become one of the most dangerous interior defenders in the league.