Jerry Jones: Tyler Smith has high ankle sprain, Michael Gallup would play if this was the Super Bowl

The Dallas Cowboys have a lot of injuries to important players on their roster. Given that the calendar hasn’t even hit September yet, that is a little concerning.

Of course some things are not necessarily brand new information. Over the offseason the Cowboys gave wide receiver Michael Gallup a brand new contract knowing that he would likely miss the beginning of the season due to a torn ACL suffered back in January.

Gallup is one starter who has already ruled himself out of the season opener. Dallas will be down a few others from last year what with them being on other teams now (Amari Cooper, La’el Collins, Connor Williams, Randy Gregory) but there is another that only became an issue recently.

Last week brought one of the team’s worst nightmares to life as left tackle Tyron Smith went down to injury. It was initially reported that he would be out until December “at best” but team owner/president/general manager Jerry Jones has done is best to breathe optimism into this story by proclaiming that he would be back for the playoffs.

Tuesday morning on 105.3 The Fan Jerry said that Smith would be back “for the meat of things” this season so make of that what you will. He also provided an injury update of sorts on Michael Gallup and Tyron’s heir apparent in rookie Tyler Smith.

Tyler Smith has a high ankle sprain, Michael Gallup would play if this was the Super Bowl

There is no doubt that the course of Tyler Smith’s NFL career has changed drastically over the last week. He went from potentially starting at left guard (although Mike McCarthy had declined to say that was definitely going to happen) next to Tyron Smith to all out replacing Tyron despite not having worked at the left tackle position since June. He played out there in college, but I don’t need to remind everyone how different the NFL is.

It would have been nice if Tyler Smith had had an opportunity to work at left tackle in the Cowboys’ preseason finale last week against the Seattle Seahawks. Unfortunately he was given some time off (all of this coinciding with the Tyron injury unfolding) due to his own injury situation.

The Cowboys have expressed nothing but optimism regarding his health and while there is certainly no reason to panic Jerry Jones did add a bit more detail to what Smith is dealing with on Tuesday morning. According to Jerry, Smith is dealing with a high ankle sprain.

To date nobody has really provided any detail to this extent of this injury. It is worth mentioning that he was cleared to return to practice which is a positive thing, but high ankle sprains can be tricky things that linger. Having to deal with that while playing left tackle for the first time in months all while having to suddenly do it against real and live NFL competition is quite the challenge to say the least.

Moving on, Jerry did bring some positive news to the table. Last week he got the ball rolling with Michael Gallup by noting that the team would not be playing him on the Reserve/PUP list which suggests that they believe the wide receiver can return in the first four weeks of the season. As noted Gallup has himself already ruled out the season opener, but anytime between Weeks 2 and 4 seems like the range they all believe is possible.

Make of it what you will, but Jerry Jones said that if the season opener were the Super Bowl that Gallup would be playing (cue the “Super Bowl?!” jeers!).

As noted here at BTB on Monday you can expect the Cowboys to carry both Gallup and James Washington on their initial 53-man roster. Although the latter is expected to be placed on injured reserve.