The 777 Project moves to the Monday Edition. What happens to the rest of their draft if Dallas takes a WR in Round 1? How does the rest of the 7-round haul play out? | From @KDDrummondNFL
The Cowboys have afforded themselves the opportunity to go in a myriad of directions during draft weekend. Prudent planning and a shift of offseason strategy had them fill their two biggest roster needs, WR2 and CB2, with outside help. No, they didn’t dabble in veteran free agency; giving a bunch of guaranteed money to players who haven’t contributed to the financial success of their organization is still a big no-no.
The club is now 100% capable of not only going full Best-Player-Available-at-a-Position-of-Need (BPAPN), but instead of having two or three positions to select from in the first round, they actually have six or seven in the 2023 draft. This exercise is meant to go through the dominoes of what happens to their choices in later rounds once that first decision is made.
In Sunday’s Edition, Dallas went offensive line, selecting Tenneessee’s Darnell Wright with the intention to move him inside to left guard. Using Fanspeak’s On the Clock Simulator we showed how that selection, followed by taking a WR in Round 2 saw the cornerback market ravaged. Dallas was still able to come away with what we think is a highly intriguing corner in Round 4.
In Monday’s Edition of the 777 Project, we will investigate the fallout from taking a WR in the first round.
Sam LaPorta could be the next Hawkeye tight end to defy expectations and become a plug-and-play NFL star; maybe even a first-round surprise. | From @ToddBrock24f7
Tight end has been an exceedingly popular pick for the Cowboys with the 26th selection in this year’s draft. Utah’s Dalton Kincaid, Notre Dame’s Michael Mayer, and Georgia’s Darnell Washington have all been projected to get the call from Jerry Jones on the first night of festivities from Kansas City.
But with their latest mock exercise, CBS Sports has a new name entering the chat.
According to Ryan Wilson‘s newest first-round forecast, Dallas selects Iowa’s Sam LaPorta with the 26th pick.
The Hawkeyes certainly have a long history of sending very capable tight ends to the next level. From Marv Cook, Scott Chandler, and Dallas Clark to T.J. Hockenson, Noah Fant, and George Kittle, tiny Iowa City has become the cradle of big-name tight ends within the world of college football.
And the position is one that the Cowboys may well be looking to bolster later this month.
Writes Wilson:
“Dalton Schultz played on the franchise tag a year ago, and he’s now in Houston. Meanwhile at tight end, the Cowboys have Jake Ferguson, Peyton Hendershot, and Sean McKeon, who combined for 32 receptions a season ago. Perhaps Dallas feels good about this group; Ferguson, a ’22 fourth-rounder, and Hendershot and McKeon, both undrafted free agents. But none were as athletic as Schultz … and that’s where LaPorta comes in. The Iowa tight end is one of five players at the position who could end up being top-40 selections, and there was a lot of buzz around the league after his pro day that he could go much higher than conventional wisdom might suggest. His tape is impressive when you account for the fact that he was playing in an antiquated Iowa offense.”
LaPorta ended his college career as the school’s all-time leader among tight ends (check that list again; that’s saying something) in receptions and finished second in receiving yards.
Sam LaPorta is a weapon. He lines up all over the formation from slot (112 snaps last year) to out wide. He has good hands and can run. (4.59)
On paper, the move makes sense and even jibes with what many mockers have said about the team’s positional status. What’s unusual with the CBS projection, though, is that LaPorta- the outlet’s fourth-ranked tight end- is the first one off the board in the hypothetical exercise. Wilson has the Cowboys passing over the aforementioned Kincaid, Mayer, and Washington- ranked by the outlet 1, 2, and 3, respectively- to take LaPorta, the lightest and shortest player of the quartet.
Sam LaPorta is a TE prospect in the 2023 draft class. He scored a 9.01 RAS out of a possible 10.00. This ranked 109 out of 1091 TE from 1987 to 2023.
Mayer is the second tight end to go in the CBS mock, getting the call from Cincinnati just two picks after LaPorta. And Washington ends up in Kansas City with the 31st selection; the top-slotted Kincaid falls out of the first round entirely in this mock.
If it plays out that way in real life, with LaPorta hearing his name called by Dallas and before the others, it would be something of a surprise.
But another Iowa tight end exceeding expectations and becoming a plug-and-play star on Sundays? That would not.
Get in the water! In this exercise we examine the fallout of Dallas choosing not to take a corner or wideout with their top pick, instead going back to the OL well. | From @KDDrummondNFL
The Dallas Cowboys can navigate a multitude of charted directions come 2023 draft weekend. They shored up every position of need and have top-tier swimmers at the starting blocks pretty much everywhere. Not even their weaker swimmers such as left guard, are in need of the lifeguard perched high; even they have stellar floaty devices. Don’t leave draft weekend with a Day 1 starter? No problem; Tyler Smith could tread water there for a year while Tyron Smith and Terence Steele anchor the tackle spots.
This leaves them with every team’s fantasy; true Baywatchian Best-Player-Available-at-a-Position-of-Need, BPAPN strategy. Being able to identify a large pool of talent, but not being limited to saying “We must have this” by Round 3. Instead, the draft’s flow and depth will dictate which stroke works best for Will McClay, Stephen Jones and ultimately Mike McCarthy.
Teams gameplan for the draft in such ways. After constructing their draft boards, they go through exercises to see what happens if the draft falls one way before they reach the clock. When it’s their time to make a decision, what does selecting one position mean for their options later in the weekend? Jones has spoken to this before, how they’ve taken a player at a position who may have been lower on their board because they felt safe the higher player would be there for them in the next round.
Let’s join them in such exercises.
Based on the players they’ve met with, documented here on the net’s most accurate draft-interest tracker, the Cowboys would feel comfortable picking from any of six position groups in the first round: WR, TE, OL, Edge, corner or safety.
The team hasn’t met with any defensive tackles or running backs routinely drafted in the first two rounds. As an executive decision, we believe them on DTs but not on RBs. It’s a thin DT class to begin with, but there are two star backs atop a deep class and if Dallas had eyes on either of the two top backs, it would behoove them to keep a lid on it.
So each day for the next week, we’ll play out what the rest of the draft’s seven rounds looks like for Dallas were they to take one of these seven spots.
We’ll be using Fanspeak’s On-the-Clock Premium Simulator for Saturday’s mock.
Aaron Rodgers gets traded, while the Cowboys sneak back into a round. Which team do you think had the best haul?
Things have changed a lot since our last three-round mock draft exercise. The first waves of free agency have come and gone and teams have a solid idea of what their starting lineups will look like come September. Now, the fun starts. Teams are watching Pro Days and bringing in players for local days as well as the 30-visit schedule.
Teams that have strong rosters are going to have flexibility come the end of April, but some are going to be pigeon-holed into taking glaring needs in order to have competitive efforts on Sundays.
Here’s a look at the latest draft projections. After the first-round picks are highlighted, check out each team’s summary from all three rounds.
Here’s a look at who Dallas could select, but more importantly how they’d be used if brought to the Cowboys. OL gets two, but CB, WR and RB get boosts. | From @KDDrummondNFL
The toughest part about doing a mock draft simulation where AI makes picks for the 31 teams you don’t control, is what happens when prospects you have no belief will actually slide, slide. Do you pick them, knowing that in real life there’s always going to be a handful of players who the draft community is way off from NFL front office evaluations?
Do you bypass them, searching for the nexus of realism and function? The simple answer is… it doesn’t matter. Mock drafts are fun, but they are thought exercises that give one of a gazillion possibilities and shouldn’t be taken any more seriously than your morning Wordle-Quordle streaks starting over.
In our latest mock, we run into this problem with a player who was under heavy consideration in Round 2, somehow making it to Round 3. If that player dropped in real life, Dallas would more than likely sprint to the podium. So who are we to deny the fates given us by the AI overlords?
If Mike Tannenbaum ran the Cowboys, he’d angle for Notre Dame’s Michael Mayer in the first round as a Dalton Schultz replacement. | From @ToddBrock24f7
Mike Tannenbaum still thinks like an NFL general manager. For over 20 years, that’s what he was paid to do, working on the player personnel and football operations side in the front offices of four different clubs.
So when he sits down to do a mock draft these days, he brings a different perspective than the pundits who are mainly trying to predict what will actually go down with each team’s pick. Tannenbaum puts himself “into the general manager’s chair” to determine his own picks and select the player he would take for each club if the decision were his to make.
Like many mocks, his is looking to the tight ends for Dallas with the 26th overall pick. But Tannenbaum has the Cowboys ending up with perhaps the best of the bunch in this year’s class, one whose NFL comparable should delight fans of America’s Team.
Tannenbaum’s GM mock has the Cowboys taking Notre Dame’s Michael Mayer with their first-round selection.
Says Tannenbaum:
“I love this fit to replace Dalton Schultz. Mayer is 6-foot-5, blocks well and provides high-end receiving talent. He was very efficient last year with 67 catches, 809 yards, and 9 touchdowns — each of which ranked top three among FBS tight ends. Schultz accounted for 14.8% of the Cowboys’ receiving yards and scored five of their 28 passing touchdowns, but I think Mayer can immediately fill that void at a high level.”
Replacing Schultz has been a priority in many mock drafts this offseason despite promising rookie efforts from Jake Ferguson and Peyton Hendershot last year. But Utah’s Dalton Kincaid is the name most so-called experts have paired up with the Cowboys. (Tannenbaum has him going 16th overall to Washington.)
Kincaid has yet to work out for teams and is still rehabbing a late-November back injury that kept him out of the Utes’ Rose Bowl appearance. Mayer, on the other hand, turned in impressive combine numbers in Indianapolis, looked very good at Notre Dame’s Pro Day last week, and says he has talked with every single NFL team ahead of next month’s draft.
Mayer got college offers from the cream of the college crop: Alabama, Georgia, LSU, Michigan, Ohio State, Penn State, Texas, and others in addition to Notre Dame. And all he did was deliver on those lofty expectations, finishing his Fighting Irish career with the most receptions ever by a Notre Dame tight end and tied for third among all pass-catchers in the program’s entire history with 180 grabs.
The Draft Network calls the 21-year-old Kentucky native “a pro-ready tight end prospect who appears poised to be an impact player at the NFL level” and compares him to none other than Cowboys legend Jason Witten.
Notre Dame fans, for what it’s worth, nicknamed him “Baby Gronk.”
It’s easy to get carried away with saying any college kid is “the next” anyone else, but if either of those evaluations are even partially true, Cowboys fans would no doubt be thrilled with the team using its first-round pick on a tight end for the first time in a quarter-century.
Now for all the league’s GMs to follow Tannenbaum’s thinking for the first 25 picks in order for Mayer to be there when Dallas goes on the clock…
Dalton Kincaid is too good to pass up at No. 26 in this NFL.com mock; the Cowboys also look at a huge OT, a raw-talent LB, and DL depth. | From @ToddBrock24f7
Thanks to a handful a savvy free agency additions and timely re-signings, the Cowboys find themselves with no panic-time holes to fill on draft weekend in Kansas City. That should allow them the relative luxury of working their big board and selecting the best players available rather than reaching for a dicey prospect because he fills a desperate positional need.
That said, there are always areas on the roster that could use reinforcement, and the Dallas front office addresses a quartet of those in the latest four-round mock exercise from NFL.com‘s draft analyst Chad Reuter.
Mazi Smith led all DTs at the scouting combine with 34 bench press reps and would help fill a need, with 2 Dallas linemen in free agency. | From @ToddBrock24f7
Blockbuster trades, big-name signings, and surprise cuts have shuffled things for most teams across the NFL, but the Cowboys still have several areas on their roster that could use improvement in 2023.
The interior defensive line remains one of those areas. In Daniel Jeremiah’s most updated mock draft for NFL.com, he has Dallas plugging the hole in a big way with the 26th overall pick.
Mazi Smith, the Michigan redshirt junior, is the third defensive tackle selected in the exercise, with Georgia’s Jalen Carter and Pitt’s Calijah Kancey coming off the board within the first 20 picks.
But Smith is no consolation prize. Says Jeremiah:
“Smith has generated a lot of buzz in personnel circles for his combination of athleticism and power. His best football is ahead of him and he’d fill a need in Dallas.”
The Cowboys have shored up several weak spots so far this offseason, but haven’t really addressed the interior of the defensive line. Johnathan Hankins and Carlos Watkins are still wading around in the free agency pool, and while Smith isn’t projected to necessarily be a Week 1 starter in the pros, he’d certainly be an interesting addition alongside Neville Gallimore, Quinton Bohanna, and Osa Odigihizuwa.
The 6-foot-3-inch 319-pounder topped all defensive tackles at the scouting combine with 34 bench press reps, but opted out of most other events in Indianapolis, saving himself for Michigan’s Pro Day last week. The school reported a 29.5-inch vertical jump and a broad jump of 8 feet, 11 inches.
He did not run the 40-yard dash at either event, though, explaining, “You start training like a track star as a big fella, it starts getting hard on you a little bit,” Smith said. “I’m good at football, man. I ain’t no 100-meter sprinter.”
I know the pass rush productivity from Mazi Smith isn't there but I'm still optimistic about his ability to rush the passer. Mazi's grip strength and agility are absurd for a guy that big. I also think he recognizes pass sets well and can attack an overset with control pic.twitter.com/v3I1o3PFR8
Many outlets believe Smith to be a better Day 2 prospect than a first-round selection, but several NFL teams have shown serious interest. Steelers head coach Mike Tomlin, for instance, reportedly met with the 21-year-old twice last week.
The Cowboys go defensive line after a late run on WRs leaves them with a Bijan decision to make. | From @KDDrummondNFL
There probably would’ve still been a draft industry if Mel Kiper, Jr. never existed, but he certainly gets the credit for lighting the flame that turned a cottage industry into a full-blown three-alarm fire. ESPN’s resident draft expert has chimed in with the third iteration of his 2023 mock drafts and with it more things to talk about.
In this version, which includes some trades, Kiper has four quarterbacks going in the first five selections, and then a run on the two boundary spots. Cornerback seen as one of the three deepest positions in the draft, but there’s certainly a cluster of players identified as first-round prospects. Wide receiver isn’t seen as top heavy but still has a bunch of first-round guys even if there isn’t the top-10 talent other years have possessed. Where does the run leave the Cowboys? Selecting a workout warrior, according to Kiper.
The Cowboys circle around to their short-term fixes with long-term solutions in this latest mock. | From @KDDrummondNFL
The Dallas Cowboys have addressed several short-term needs, but there are always two goals in roster construction. Getting right for the 2023 season is first and foremost, and with the franchise tag placed on Tony Pollard followed by the trades for Stephon Gilmore and Brandin Cooks, Dallas has done that.
Those moves are one-year rentals though, although Cooks conceivably could stick around for the second year of his contract. Other moves made in between, re-signing Leighton Vander Esch and more importantly Donovan Wilson, deal with both the short-term and bigger picture. To truly address future needs though, the draft is the avenue the Cowboys will travel.
