Team has high hopes for Smith’s debut

Game will be first in 19 months after linebacker’s injury.

— Jaylon Smith doesn’t want to talk about his NFL debut on Saturday. At least before it happens.

Smith declined interview requests Wednesday, saying he’d address reporters after he actually played in the Dallas Cowboys-Indianapolis Colts preseason game.

But plenty of others within the organization talked about it and there is a buzz about Smith’s first game action in more than 19 months.

“He’s going to do unbelievable,” linebacker Sean Lee said. “It’s unbelievable how far he’s progressed. I can’t wait to watch him.”

Neither can the Cowboys front office or coaching staff.

“He literally has not had a bad minute since he’s been here,” coach Jason Garrett said. “He comes to work every

with incredible spirit and he’s just so much fun to be around. Everybody is pulling for him. He’s worked very hard. He deserves this opportunity.”

Smith will be on a pitch count, executive vice president Stephen Jones said. It’s unknown what exactly that pitch count will be, but Jones reiterated that the organization views Smith as a 10-year player.

So they won’t overextend Smith in a preseason contest.

“You don’t need to go win defensive player of the year in the first night out in the preseason game,” Jones said. “He has trusted the process. He knows what we have done with him and have his best interest at stake here. He trusts the training staff, the coaching staff, the organization. Obviously we have made a big investment in him.”

The Cowboys used an early second-round pick in the 2016 draft to select Smith, knowing he would have to take at least a redshirt year. Smith tore the anterior cruciate and medial collateral ligaments in his left knee during Notre Dame’s bowl game Jan. 1, 2016. Dam- age to the peroneal nerve was more problematic.

Some teams were so concerned Smith may never see the field again that they took him off their draft boards entirely.

The Cowboys felt comfortable enough that Smith would eventually recover, partly because their team physician, Dr. Daniel Cooper, did the surgery. Cooper gave a timeline of 9-15 months for the nerve to fully recover.

“We all understood the severity of the injury,” Garrett said. “But we always felt like we knew the guy. Just the way he’s handled himself.”

And, as Garrett said, Smith couldn’t have handled himself better in a lengthy and delib- erate rehab process.

Smith has done the right things all along and has repeat- edly said he’s at “peace” with what’s happened to him. And he’s been on board with how the Cowboys have brought him back in training camp.

Smith has participated in nine of the 13 padded practices for the Cowboys, taking Wednesday off. He was expected to return for Thurs- day’s practice, the final one before the team breaks camp.

Smith continues to wear a brace on his left foot for a conditioned called “drop foot,” but that hasn’t slowed him from showing signs of his old college self.

Smith had been pegged as a top-10 talent coming out of Notre Dame, and has made plays that suggest why. He ended Monday’s practice with a would-be sack of Kellen Moore, and played well as the first-team middle linebacker Tuesday with Lee dealing with a hamstring strain.

These flashes by Smith haven’t come as a surprise to the organization. Jones said the team felt like it was only a matter of time once there were signs of the nerve re-generating itself.

have been seeing this coming. Other people might not have totally bought into that,” Jones said. “But we felt good about him throughout the off-season and OTAs and minicamps and how he prepared himself. It’s always great to see it come to fruition, but I don’t think there are a lot of surprises based on the progress he started to make when the nerve started to re-engineer itself. You felt good about that then. That was always one of the key things, to have it fire.

“Once it did that you knew it was going to make its way.”

Now, Smith is on the verge of returning to game action.

“I’m just happy for him. The journey he has been on,” Jones said. “To me, he is all about and somebody having a vision about where he can go and not letting some setbacks and bumps hold him back. He has never had a bad day since we drafted him.”