One Play, Another Injury: Cowboys Rookie In At Center

Dallas Cowboys Starting Center Joe Looney Is Injured On The First Play In Week 4; Rookie Center Tyler Biadasz Takes Over Vs. Browns

ARLINGTON - The Dallas Cowboys' offensive line has been a jumbled mess for the entirety of the first month of the season, with an assortment of plug-'em-in-kids being counted on to hold things together until reinforcements in the form of Tyron Smith and La'el Collins are ready to reclaim their jobs.

Rookie center Tyler Biadasz has plugged in. It was a smart bet before the game that he would soon plug in again.

But "soon'' came too soon.

On the very first play from scrimmage here at AT&T Stadium against the Cleveland Browns, starting center Joe Looney was blocking on an Ezekiel Elliott running play when Looney went down and stayed down with a knee injury.

He did eventually hobble off to the locker room guided by medical personnel and is being described as "questionable'' to return.

And along comes the rookie.

"When you're looking at a young player like Biadasz,'' Cowboys COO Stephen Jones said last week, reflecting on the Wisconsin product jumping into last week's loss at Seattle, "he goes in there and does a lot of good things.''

Good enough to keep the job while wresting it away from solid veteran Looney? That's not exactly how all of this went down last week. First came the absences of Smith and Collins (Smith is expected back in Sunday's Week 4 NFL visit from Cleveland). Then came a tackle replacement, UDFA rookie Terence Steele having to leave the Seattle game, causing All-Pro right guard Zack Martin to kick out to tackle, and dragging Looney from center to guard.

Enter Biadasz, who ended up playing 52 snaps in the game after having played a total of two before last Sunday.

"I always stay ready,'' Biadasz said. "We have a good rotation during the week, so I'm always ready. I'm always just in the game plan, in the scheme and everything. So I'm always ready on the sideline and I was giving the guys feedback when I'm not on the field, you know, what's happening on the field and how they're playing it and all that stuff. 

"So I was ready, and definitely ready for the game."

Is he ready to become the full-time starter?

Said Jones, "He has some things obviously that he has to work on before he wrestles that job away from Joe Looney.''

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Maybe so. But the Cowboys came away impressed with the intellect and stoutness of Biadasz; the 6-4, 314-pounder survived his trial by fire and his performance is convincing Dallas that it made the right move in the 2020 NFL Draft trade-up to get him in Round 4 as a to-be-groomed replacement for the retired Travis Frederick.

"Absolutely there's competition. I mean, that's our league," Jones told G-BAG Nation on 105.3 The Fan. "Knowing Joe Looney, he's a competitor, he's one of the leaders in that room. He's certainly not going to go away quietly in terms of the competition right there."

But it was a competition, and a good one, a quality journeyman in Looney vs. a touted kid in Biadasz. ... and now, for this day, anyway, the rookie is going to win the job by forfeit.