Dallas Cowboys roster move: Tyron Smith and James Washington officially placed on injured reserve

The Dallas Cowboys set their initial 53-man roster on Tuesday and we have been harping on the word “initial” because things are expected to change quite a bit before the season opener against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.

Part of that change occurred on Wednesday when the Cowboys did the inevitable by officially moving both Tyron Smith and James Washington to injured reserve. The latter is expected back around mid-October while the former is reportedly set to return in December at best.

Of course what goes up must come down, and with the Cowboys generating two roster spots by moving Smith and Washington to IR, they were able to bring two players aboard. Those two are specialists C.J. Goodwin and Jake McQuaide, both of whom were a part of the roster “cuts” that happened on Tuesday. This was always a part of the plan.

The Cowboys still have at least two roster spots that they need to generate before taking their roster completely seriously as it currently does not feature a backup quarterback or kicker. Brett Maher and both Cooper Rush as well as Will Grier were part of the 16 reported players to join the team’s practice squad on Wednesday, as mentioned there are a lot of loopholes being exploited (legally of course) as the Cowboys put the finishing touches on the group they are going to take into the regular season.

But again, whenever the Cowboys want to eventually promote Maher and a backup quarterback to the roster they will need to create two roster spots to do that. Smith and Washington were two obvious dominoes to fall, the others remain a bit more of a mystery.