The Cowboys defensive tackle might have been surpassed on the roster to the point he is not needed anymore.
It’s been a strange year for the Dallas Cowboys defense. Coming into the season, on paper, the Cowboys defense looked bad. Through five weeks, they’ve played well above expectations and have some reinforcements working back from the IR and PUP list. Leading up to the Cowboys week six game against the Patriots, the Cowboys announced that rookie CB Kelvin Joseph will be designated for return and his practice window has started. Defensive tackle Neville Gallimore and defensive end DeMarcus Lawrence are still a month or so away from returning according the Stephen Jones, but an update on both of them was nice to hear.
There is one player were getting absolutely nothing on, and that’s third-year defensive tackle, and former second-round pick, Trysten Hill. It’s been over a year now since Hill tore his ACL against the New York Giants in the 2021 season. It normally doesn’t take players a full-year to recover from a torn ACL, and if it does take longer than expected, said player is normally practicing to some extent this late into the recovery process. So what’s going on with Hill?
Realistically, the Cowboys don’t have space for him at the moment. Rookie Osa Odighizuwa has been playing extremely well and free agent acquisitions Brent Urban and Carlos Watkins have impressed through five weeks as well. While those being the main three, rookie Quinton Bohanna and fifth-year player Justin Hamilton have also provided some quality depth. With Gallimore looking to make a return within the next month, it’s hard to envision a scenario where Hill get’s on the field.
In his two years with the Cowboys, Hill has yet to record a sack, has just two tackles for loss, five quarterback hits, and 16 tackles. That comes in just 12 games played, five of them being starts.
While the team may be waiting for an injury to occur before activating Hill, it’s a large fall from grace for a player that was selected with the 58th overall pick just two years ago, at a position the Cowboys have desperately needed help at over the last decade. If Hill’s career in Dallas is in fact over, the former second-round pick out of UCF has had an extremely underwhelming start to his NFL career. For Hill, the best case scenario is that an injury occurs allowing him a chance at a possible return, but in that case he has to be healthy, and there is no sign of knowing if that’s the case or not.