I dunno about this. It seemed to me that our 2021 coaching staff was perhaps the most position-flexible staff I can remember us having in many years. Lots of guys changed positions. Lots. Lots of guys got asked to step outside their normal positional roles and do other stuff.
Safeties were playing linebacker and corner. Linebackers were playing d-line and roaming in coverage in the secondary. There was that whole Conner-to-center wet dream that we kept indulging long past the point where his inability to snap a football made it clear it wasn't viable. We had a WR who we kept scheming ways for him to throw the ball, sometimes as a forward-passer and sometimes as a lateral-passer. We were playing spare o-linemen at fullback and TE and WR.
I think our coaching staff was absolutely open to exploring and exploiting positional flexibility.
I think it was just certain entrenched veterans who were too selfish to keep an open mind about it -- Zack Martin types who obviously dug in their heels and didn't want to change their routine even if it could help the team.
I think you are misunderstanding what we are talking about.
I am not referring to occasional plays where a linemen may line up at the end and once every few dozen plays get a ball throw to them in the end zone (most teams do this at least once every year or two) nor am I referring to the occasional fullback role.
We are talking about every down positions such as Offensive Tackle, Offensive Guard, Center, etc.
The Cowboys coaches always seems to lock-in on positions. For example, "This player is a tackle" or "that player is a guard". Left/right is not important, it's the position itself that is the problem.
Collins may be better than Steele, but Collins played guard earlier in his career and Collins at left guard and Steele at right tackle would likely produce better overall results than Collins at right tackle and Williams at left guard. Steele may not play as well as Collins at right tackle but the focus should be on overall line performance, not just one position.
Can no other player play center? Biadasz struggled at times both in blocking and with snapping, so maybe Williams or McGregor could do better than him. Maybe they cannot, but at least find out some of these things and maybe make that a factor in the lineman drafting and/or signing process.
Of course this team has a lot of issues that go beyond this topic, but this is the topic of this thread which is why I will not mention the other problems.
In baseball, you may have two great shortstops on your team, but only one of them can play and you do not want the other one sitting on the bench when they are better than the second or third basemen.
The solution is simple .. best 5 offensive linemen should be on the field even if it means downgrading one of the positions because the upgrade they provide at their new position may more than make up from any downgrade from their move.
