Tyron Smith to Dak Prescott as he retires: ‘You’ll always be QB1 to me’

Tyron Smith shouted out Dak Prescott and others during his retirement press conference.

Tyron Smith retired from the NFL on Wednesday. What a career he had.

Something I realized in the early part of this week what with Rory McIlroy winning The Masters and so many people talking about how McIlroy had been chasing ghosts at Augusta first born in 2011, and that was literally all of Tyron Smith’s career. It was referred to as this insanely large amount of time with McIlroy, rightfully so, which proves how incredible it was that Smith played as long as he did.

Smith joined Jerry Jones and Stephen Jones at The Star on Wednesday for a press conference to celebrate his illustrious career and in the process said a lot of things. He thanked many people in his personal life that helped him reach the NFL and thrive in it, shouted out his family and obviously touched on many of the players who he played with, and given that 13 of his professional seasons were spent in Dallas, they were mostly Cowboys.

Smith mentioned a lot of players. Names like Kyle Kosier, Andre Gurode and Jeremy Parnell were thrown out of an older variety. Tony Romo, Miles Ausitn and DeMarcus Ware were mentioned as well. More recent, some active, players like recently-retired Zack Martin himself, La’el Collins and Tyler Biadasz got some love. It included the people who you would assume that it would.

Smith took one moment to acknowledge quarterback Dak Prescott specifically. He talked about how Dak was more than a teammate and finished it by saying that Dak would always be QB1 in his eyes.

While he played with Tony Romo (who he mentioned as noted) for some time, he played significantly more of his career with Dak. It makes sense for him to have different emotions about the two in general, but on top of that it also feels fair for him to “side” (for lack of a better word) with the one who was a larger part of his career.

Those who played with Prescott have always spoken of the quarterback with extremely high remarks like Smith did.

Consider what Zack Martin wrote in the Players Tribune after his own retirement:

“…and last but not least, Dak Prescott…. just thank you from the bottom of my heart. I know I’ve told you this before, Dak, but you’re the kind of person and leader I aspire to be like in my own life. I’ll miss having your back out there, buddy. But our bond goes well beyond football.”

For all intents and purposes, Martin played only the 2014 season for Dallas with Romo under center (a year that Tyron spoke about glowingly in his presser). This is normal.

But it is interesting how even almost a decade after the debate between Dak and Romo that these little things come out. It isn’t proof that one was better than the other, just the passage of time.