EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J. — Before kickoff Sunday night at MetLife Stadium, Jerry Jones said he hopes left guard Tyler Smith is back on the field after four weeks. Smith is on injured reserve with a designation to return following surgery to repair ligament damage in his left thumb. The Dallas Cowboys put the absence at four to six weeks when they announced the procedure last week.
Jones said the hope is the front end of that range.
“I hope it’s early,” Jones said. “I hope. But we’ll just see how it works.”
Smith attended Sunday’s game against the New York Giants wearing a cast. He tried to practice through the thumb during training camp in Oxnard, California, and when the pain reached the point that he could not function, the team moved to surgery.
Tyler Smith’s Surgery And Injured Reserve Timeline
Cowboys coach Brian Schottenheimer announced the decision Sept. 7 and said the operation was set for the following morning. Smith had practiced through the previous week. He was not on the field to start the week leading into the opener.
“When you’re an offensive lineman, grip strength and things like that are really important,” Schottenheimer said. “We know he’s a quick healer.”
Two days later, the Cowboys placed Smith on reserve/injured with a designation to return, signed guard Nick Leverett to the active roster from the practice squad, and signed guard Laken Tomlinson to the practice squad.
The designation requires Smith to miss at least four games. The earliest he can play is Week 5 against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers at AT&T Stadium on Thursday, Oct. 8, with kickoff set for 7:15 p.m. CT on Prime Video. That one falls on a short week. Dallas plays at Green Bay on Oct. 18.
Smith is the third player the Cowboys have moved to that list this season, leaving them five more designations for the rest of 2026.
On his weekly radio appearance on 105.3 The Fan the morning of the surgery, Jones said Smith aggravated an injury he carried into camp in California.
“He really exacerbated that injury that he came to California with,” Jones said. “And he basically had an injury more, in my mind, more obvious that we needed to have the internal fixation on it. So we all thought that he could work through it.”
T.J. Bass Takes Over For Tyler Smith At Left Guard
T.J. Bass started at left guard against the Giants. Bass has 10 career starts for Dallas, 5 of them last season, split between both guard spots. The Cowboys signed him out of Oregon as an undrafted free agent in May 2023 and tendered him at the second-round level in March, a one-year deal worth $5.8 million.
Schottenheimer said the Cowboys trust Bass and pointed to the tender as the evidence.
“Tyler Smith’s a great player, but we feel really confident in T.J., and he’s put great film on here,” Schottenheimer said.
“We tendered him the way we tendered him because we trust this guy as a football player,” Schottenheimer continued.
Dallas drafted Smith 24th overall in 2022 out of Tulsa. He started 16 games at left tackle as a rookie before moving inside, and he has started all 63 regular-season games he has appeared in. Pro Bowl selections followed in 2023, 2024, and 2025. He was a second-team All-Pro in 2023.
Smith signed a four-year, $96 million extension on Sept. 13, 2025, the day before last season’s opener, with $81.2 million guaranteed. The deal made him the highest-paid guard in the league at the time. In February he had minor cleanup surgery on his right knee.
Leverett appeared in 1 game for the Cowboys last season and has 22 career appearances with 11 starts, with earlier stops in Tampa Bay, New England, and Arizona. He played both guard and center for Dallas during the preseason. Tomlinson, the 28th overall pick in 2015, has 162 starts in 173 career games and made the Pro Bowl with San Francisco in 2021.
Dallas hosts the Washington Commanders in the home opener Sunday at AT&T Stadium. Kickoff is set for 3:25 p.m. CT on FOX.
