Close though they are in nearly every way, the football paths of brothers Rod and Jaylon Smith always had been separate.
Rod, three years older, was an all-state running back at Fort Wayne Indiana's Harding High. Jaylon starred at Fort Wayne's small Catholic school, Bishop Luers, earning the Butkus award as the nation's best high school linebacker.
Rod played at Ohio State; Jaylon at Notre Dame. Rod went undrafted; Jaylon was selected in the second round by the Cowboys.
Sunday, though, they will take the field at AT&T Stadium as Cowboys teammates when Dallas opens the 2017 regular season against the New York Giants.
"Oh, I can't wait to see them on the same field, same time, same team," says their mother, Sophia Woodson. "I might cry."
Sophia plans to be in the AT&T Stadium stands with her husband, Lane, as does Rod and Jaylon's father, Roger Smith, and his wife, Crystal.
For Roger, 49, this intersection of his sons' career in North Texas is extra-special. Though he grew up in Fort Wayne _ Bears, Packers and Lions country _ he's been a Cowboys fan since he was 5 and the team was quarterbacked by another Roger: Staubach.
"It's kind of surreal," he says. "All of it is a total blessing. For them to be on my favorite team? For them to both be there and have the opportunity to fulfill their dream together?
"I mean, as a dad, what more could you ask for?"
How unusual is it for brothers to make it to the NFL, let alone the same team?
According to calculations compiled by the NFL Players Association, only about 215 of 100,000, or roughly 0.2 percent, of high school seniors who play annually go on to NFL careers.
A March 2015 compilation by the Pro Football Hall of Fame listed 373 documented sets of brothers who played in the NFL, AFL or the 1940s All-America Football Conference.
Those brother combinations date to the 1920s and include the likes of Jim and Jack Thorpe and Red and Garland Grange.
The Pro Football Hall of Fame list cites 67 cases in which brothers played on the same team in the same season, including the Cowboys' Troy and Darren Hambrick in 2000 and 2001. The list, however, omits Akin and Remi Ayodele, who shared the field for seven Cowboys games in 2007.
Although Rod and Jaylon Smith were much sought-after college recruits, each has had adversity. Jaylon's is well-known. In his final college game, the Jan. 1, 2016 Fiesta Bowl, he suffered knee ligament and nerve damage.
Originally projected as a top-five pick, he plummeted to the second round and had to sit out all of last season, his first with the Cowboys.
Rod Smith arrived at Ohio State two years before Urban Meyer and his staff took over. Primarily used as a backup to Ezekiel Elliott and on special teams, Smith finished his college career with 549 rushing yards. His time as a Buckeye was pockmarked by a missed team flight to the 2011 Gator Bowl, academic issues and, reportedly, a failed drug test.
Signed as a free agent by Seattle in 2015, Rod Smith was claimed off waivers by the Cowboys in October 2015 and has spent the past two seasons mostly playing special teams.
"Now, watching them run out together?" Roger Smith says. "I think I'll be more emotional and happy for them because I know the backstory of how they both are and what they both had to overcome.
"For them to be there together is big because I know there is no one who can push them more than they push each other."
