It’s an article that’s written every offseason; sometimes more than once and oftentimes mentioned throughout the year. It’s the tale of a player who’s failed to live up to the enormous expectations of his contract. It’s about how this year is do-or-die and his entire career trajectory will be determined by how he performs the coming season.
In this case it’s a story about Terence Steele.
Steele, the Cowboys starting right tackle and most tenured offensive lineman on the team, has seemingly been on his last leg for years. How he’s survived is anyone’s guess, but it’s likely more about lack of alternatives and likability in the locker room than it is about him meeting expectations. Steele, recipient of at least half-a-dozen of such articles by yours truly, is playing for his job in 2025. I said the same thing in 2024 and a similar thing the offseason before he broke out in 2022.
Steele has never fully bounced back from that knee injury that ended his 2022 season. It was that impressive, 13-game campaign that let to Steele’s massive five-year, $82,500,000 extension that has kept him on the roster in the years since.
In 2023 he graded out 69 of 91 in offensive tackles. In 2024 he improved to 42 of 81. Working up to slightly below average is one thing, but doing it as one of the highest paid linemen in the NFL is a completely different thing. Steele, like Tyron Crawford and DeMarcus Lawrence who came before him, is a product of his contractual expectations. As the third biggest cap hit in 2025, Steele’s held to a different standard than other players. He’s supposed to be a cornerstone player and not just a guy.
Fair or not, Crawford and Lawrence were very divisive players within the fanbase. Whether they met the expectations of their contracts or not is a different topic for a different day, but no one can argue they weren’t extremely productive players who were undeniable assets for the team. Steele's value hasn't been so clear.
Even in his 13-game outlier stretch of 2022, he struggled as a pass protector, grading 80th out of 140 OTs that year. The season following the injury was understandably worse, grading 109th out of 137 OTs in 2023. Like the rest of his game, pass protection improved in 2024, landing at 90th in the NFL.
Steele has never been a good pass protector. He’s never even been average. Signed through 2028, Steele has a cap hit of $18,125,000 in both 2025 and 2026, and cap hits of $21,125,000 and $18,625,000 in 2027 and 2028, respectively. It’s an enormous sum of money but with the growing market it’s an amount that becomes more digestible by the year.
Based on his body of work, Steele is never going to be a good pass protector in the NFL. Where the 28-year-old Steele can earn his roster spot is through dominant run blocking. He was top 10 in run blocking in 2022, and he’s come close to recapturing that status in 2024. If he can elevate his pass protection just enough to not be a liability, all while returning to glory as a top-10 run blocker, he’ll be worth keeping around.
Based on current RT contracts, Steele ranks just 11th in APY value. Offensive tackles are always in demand and each year the bar gets raised to sign one. That means each year Steele’s contract looks better and better.
Steele has to improve in pass protection again this season. A team with postseason hopes cannot afford to field the 90th best pass protector and expect success, no matter how good of a run blocker he might be. The Cowboys’ left tackle situation means extra blockers cannot be spared to help Steele out either, so the veteran has to get things done by himself.
With no true challengers coming up the pipeline and average prices of starting RT contracts on the rise, Steele has a realistic pathway to playout the rest of his deal with the Cowboys. 2025 is still do-or-die for Steele but the bar isn’t quite as high as it once seemed it was. With offensive line guru Klayton Adams now leading the offense and first round pick Tyler Booker now playing next to him, head coach Brian Schottenheimer had this to say about Steele in 2025:
“I think he’s set up to have a great year.”
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