Mazi Smith apparently ate ‘the right things’ over the course of the offseason.
The Dallas Cowboys defense needs an upgraded version Mazi Smith. His ability to take a serious step forward in his second NFL season will dramatically dictate what direction the pendulum swings for this group.
We are on the precipice of training camp beginning and therefore learning more about how Mike Zimmer is going to properly coordinate the bunch on a down-to-down basis, but Smith was one of the only people to not fully thrive with Dan Quinn pulling the strings. Perhaps Zimmer is the whisperer that he specifically needs.
Whether you blame the coordinator or the player something was obviously not right with Smith throughout the course of his rookie season. Entering the league as a first-round pick elevated expectations, especially because Dallas hadn’t touched the defensive tackle position in that round in forever at the time, and obviously Smith fell short of them.
In the time that we have had to assess what may or did go wrong in Year 1 there have been many who wondered whether or not Smith dropped weight that took him physically away from the freak of an athlete that he was in the middle of the Michigan Wolverines defensive line. The added speculation has been that he has been putting on weight this offseason.
We will see this up close and personal in about a week’s time, but Smith may have let a little bit out of the bag on that front. In an interview posted by the mothership, Smith is asked about his offseason and he specifically mentions eating “the right things.” You can watch the interview (Trey Lance, Luke Schoonmaker and Cooper Beebe also field questions) below.
“Just really, just getting back all the way to how I’m supposed to be. Putting everything back the right way. Training the right way. Eating the right things. All of that stuff that you’re supposed to do.”
This is a small handful of words and we shouldn’t make a mountain out of any kind of mole hill, but does this not read like someone who is trying to return to a certain form? Potentially a physical one?
The defense is somewhat relying on Smith becoming the player who the Cowboys thought that they drafted. Johnathan Hankins is gone, and while Osa Odighizuwa represents a nice alternative, Smith is the person charged with stopping the run and giving the group a proper backbone.
We have not seen much of Smith this entire offseason as he had shoulder surgery at the beginning of it. Soon enough the cover will come off of the car like the machines in Formula 1 at Bahrain, hopefully this year’s model is up to the challenge that we need it to be.