FRISCO, Texas — The Dallas Cowboys placed guard Tyler Smith on reserve/injured with a designation to return on Wednesday, signed guard Nick Leverett to the active roster from the practice squad, and signed guard Laken Tomlinson to the practice squad, the team announced.
Smith had the thumb repaired Monday, six days before the opener at MetLife Stadium. Cowboys coach Brian Schottenheimer put the absence at four to six weeks that morning. He said then that the designation was coming.
The designation requires Smith to miss at least four games. The earliest he can play is Week 5 against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. Smith is the third player Dallas has moved to that list this season, which leaves the Cowboys five more designations for the rest of 2026.
Tyler Smith Lands On Injured Reserve With A Designation To Return
Schottenheimer said Dallas coveted T.J. Bass for a stretch exactly like this one.
“It’s something that’s he’s been dealing with,” Schottenheimer said. “It’s just felt like he couldn’t do at a high level. It’s a long season. It’s unfortunate but that’s why we coveted T.J. Bass.”
Smith was the 24th overall pick in the 2022 draft out of Tulsa. He signed a four-year, $96 million extension last September with $81.2 million guaranteed, which made him the highest-paid guard in the league at the time. Through four seasons he has played 63 games and started all 63. He has made the Pro Bowl three times. He was a second-team All-Pro selection in 2023.
At left guard, Dallas turns to Bass.
Bass has 48 career games and 10 starts. Five of those starts came last season. Dallas signed him out of Oregon as an undrafted free agent in May 2023. In the offseason, the Cowboys tendered him at the second-round level.
Per NextGenStats, Bass played 198 pass-blocking snaps in 2025 and allowed 8 quarterback pressures. That was the lowest pressure total among Cowboys offensive linemen with at least 190 snaps. He was also the only Dallas lineman who did not give up a sack.
Through camp, Bass took regular first-team reps on days when the staff pulled back Smith’s workload.
Bass has spent three seasons behind players Schottenheimer rates ahead of him.
“Tyler Smith’s a great player, but we feel really confident in T.J., and he’s put great film on here,” Schottenheimer explained. “He’s played next to Cooper Beebe, he’s played next to [Tyler] Guyton, so that’s nothing new, the communication and all that stuff…”
“We tendered him the way we tendered him because we trust this guy as a football player,” Schottenheimer continued. “He’s a damn good football player that unfortunately is just playing behind a lot of really, really good players. So we have great confidence in T.J.”
Nick Leverett And Laken Tomlinson Fill Out The Interior
Schottenheimer’s confidence runs to the whole unit rather than to Bass alone.
“Offensive line play is tied together,” Schottenheimer said. “We’ve gone into games with four new starters on the offensive line. I’m very, very confident that this group will play well against a really good front. I have great confidence in T.J. Bass. He’s extremely bright, very physical, great athlete. He’ll do a marvelous job for us, I’m sure, stepping in.”
Leverett was the only interior offensive lineman on the Dallas practice squad before the promotion. He worked at both guard and center through the preseason. He has 23 career games and 11 starts, 10 of which came at left guard for Tampa Bay in 2022. He played one game for the Cowboys last season and took 4 special teams snaps in it. He entered the league undrafted in 2020 after four years at North Carolina Central and a final season at Rice.
Detroit took Tomlinson 28th overall in 2015. He played four seasons at Duke before that. Tomlinson has 173 career games and 162 starts. The Pro Bowl nod came in 2021, during five seasons in San Francisco. Last year he played 10 games for Houston and started 7 of them. He has also spent time with the New York Jets and Seattle.
Kickoff at MetLife Stadium in East Rutherford, New Jersey, is 7:20 p.m. CT Sunday on NBC. Dallas and the New York Giants split their two meetings last season. The Cowboys won 40-37 in overtime at AT&T Stadium in Week 2, and the Giants won the finale 34-17 at MetLife.
