Matt
Waletzko.
Matt
Waletzko.
North Dakota· 6'8"· 312 lb· 5.03s 40
Waletzko is a 6-foot-8 left tackle whose game is built on length and range. He kicks out of his stance smoothly for a man his size, covers ground to the arc and uses a 36-inch reach to meet rushers before they can build speed, which is why North Dakota's line gave up two and three sacks in his last two seasons.
The run game is where the frame works against him. He plays tall, and once a defender gets under his pads he loses the leverage battle and can be walked back into the pocket. He will reach and seal on zone concepts but does not displace bodies at the point of attack. The signature is a clean, patient pass set from a small-school tackle who almost never surrendered pressure.
Pass-first offense with a wide-zone run game that asks its tackles to reach and seal rather than to drive defenders off the ball.
Year 1: developmental swing tackle and jumbo-package body. Ceiling: starting left tackle in a zone scheme after two years of strength work.
A gap and power run scheme that expects its tackles to down-block on 320-pound defensive tackles and create movement at the point of attack.
Everything about his projection assumes a redshirt season he never got.
INSIDE LOOK - Matt Waletzko OT, North Dakota | 2022 Dallas Cowboys Draft
Film breakdown of his North Dakota pass sets and run-blocking reps before the draft.
Cowboys Select North Dakota OL Matt Waletzko With The 155th Pick | 2022 NFL Draft
Draft-night selection segment with scouting context on the FCS tackle.
Breaking down Cowboys rookie offensive linemen Matt Waletzko & Alec Lindstrom
Technique-focused breakdown of his footwork, length and anchor from a former lineman.
Waletzko came out of Cold Spring, Minnesota and started at left tackle for North Dakota as a true freshman after the staff pulled his redshirt, which tells you how much they trusted the frame. He is 6-foot-7 5/8 and 312 pounds with 36 1/8-inch arms and a seven-foot-plus wingspan, the kind of measurements that make a Football Championship Subdivision tackle a real NFL conversation.
The résumé is pass protection. He started the spring 2021 season on a line that led the FCS and ranked third nationally in sacks allowed with two, earning second-team All-Missouri Valley honors, then started ten games in the fall and was first-team All-MVFC on a line that allowed three sacks. The flags were competition, strength and durability. He faced almost no NFL-level edge rushers, his 28 bench reps did not translate into functional power on tape, and he tore an ACL as a sophomore and missed his final college game with a left shoulder injury.
The board read him as a developmental swing tackle: a Day 3 pick with the arms and the feet to start eventually if a team could add 15 pounds of play strength and survive the FCS-to-NFL jump. Dallas taking him 155th overall, with the pick obtained in the Amari Cooper trade, was a bet on a redshirt year behind a settled starting line.
- 01
Length
36 1/8-inch arms and a wingspan over seven feet let him get first contact on almost every rush and steer edge defenders past the pocket.
- 02
Pass-set footwork
kicks cleanly to the arc and mirrors speed rushes with patience, the reason his lines finished near the top of the FCS in sacks allowed twice.
- 03
Frame and growth room
6-foot-8 and 312 pounds with room to add functional weight, a body type that teams will spend a draft pick on almost regardless of tape.
- 04
Starting experience
four seasons at left tackle beginning as a true freshman, with 28 career starts despite two injury-shortened years.
- 05
Athletic testing for his size
a 5.03 forty and 4.59 shuttle at 312 pounds confirm the range he shows getting to second-level blocks on zone runs.
- 01
Play strength
gets under-leveraged by heavier defenders and cannot anchor against a true bull rush, the single biggest obstacle between him and NFL snaps.
- 02
Pad level
his height makes it hard to stay low, so he plays upright in the run game and loses the leverage battle before his hands even land.
- 03
Level of competition
MVFC edge rushers rarely tested him with NFL-caliber speed-to-power, leaving no tape against the rush profile that will define his career.
- 04
Injury history
a torn left ACL as a sophomore and a left shoulder injury that ended his senior season raise durability questions for a player who needs reps.
— — — positional median (p50)
- 40 yd
- 5.03sp50
- Vertical
- 30inp50
- Broad jump
- 113inp50
- Three-cone
- —s
- Shuttle
- —s
- Bench
- —rep
| Yr | Team | G |
|---|---|---|
| 2018 | North Dakota | 9 |
| 2019 | North Dakota | 6 |
| 2020 | North Dakota | 7 |
| 2021 | North Dakota | 10 |
| Career | — | 32 |
Offensive linemen do not accumulate statistics, so only participation is published. Games and starts come from North Dakota's official bio and season recaps: the redshirt was pulled as a true freshman for nine games with five starts at left tackle, the 2019 season ended after six starts with a torn left ACL, the 2020 season was played in the spring of 2021 and consisted of seven starts, and he started ten of eleven games as a senior before a left shoulder injury. cfbstats does not publish participation for offensive linemen.
A dash means the figure is not published by a source we trust — never a zero we invented.
Developmental swing tackle who dresses on game day for years without ever locking down a starting role.
Long, light-footed left tackle whose pass sets carry him to a starting job in a zone-based offense.
Day 3 tackle with the frame but not the strength or health, who never takes a meaningful offensive snap.
Everything above is the pre-draft evaluation. This section is what actually happened — updated year over year.
The shoulder decided it. Waletzko dislocated the same left shoulder in the second practice of his first training camp, missed most of the preseason, played almost exclusively on special teams and took a single offensive snap before the shoulder gave way again and sent him to injured reserve in October 2022. He spent nearly all of 2023 on injured reserve and played one game, then appeared in seven games as a backup in 2024, inactive for ten. Dallas moved him to guard in the 2025 preseason and waived him injured in August. Minnesota signed and released him from its practice squad within a week, Kansas City added him in December 2025 on a futures deal, and he was waived injured again in August 2026. Four seasons produced 11 games and no starts.
The retrospective is that the developmental plan never got a single healthy offseason. The strength concerns were real and the competition jump was real, but he was never on the field long enough for either to be tested. This is the version of a small-school traits pick that fails for reasons the tape could not predict, and the shoulder history in his file was the one warning that turned out to matter most.