Mike McCarthy loves tight ends, and he seems to have a special affinity for tight ends from the the Big Ten conference.
The Cowboys went seven rounds this draft weekend without selecting a single tight end, but there was at least one they had their eye on. And once the final pick was in and teams started burning up the phone lines to sign the leftover prospects as undrafted free agents, Dallas put their money where their head coach’s mouth was to secure the newest addition to the TE room.
Minnesota’s Brevyn Spann-Ford got a $20,000 signing bonus and a sizable guarantee of $225,000 to sign with the Cowboys, according to reports, with the team winning a bidding war to get the 6-foot-6-inch 260-pounder.
For context, the Cowboys’ entire 13-man UDFA class last year got $573,000 in guaranteed money. That the team spent 39% of that amount on Spann-Ford alone, just topping what Dallas gave to fullback Hunter Luepke in 2023, indicates a strong level of interest and high expectations that he’ll make the 53-man roster.
Spann-Ford is the fourth Big Ten tight end on the Cowboys roster, joining Wisconsin’s Jake Ferguson, Luke Schoonmaker (2023’s second-round pick) out of Michigan, and Indiana’s Peyton Hendershot.
(Princeton Fant went to Tennessee, and while the promising John Stephens Jr. went to Louisiana, the Cowboys website technically has him listed as a wide receiver, which was his college position. Alec Holler, from Central Florida, was also signed as an undrafted free agent over the weekend.)
The Cowboys reportedly had a draftable grade on Spann-Ford, a 24-year-old from St. Cloud who bypassed the draft after the 2022 season and returned for a sixth year with the Golden Gophers.
#Cowboys gave #Gophers Brevyn Spann-Ford $225k in guaranteed money. Pretty clear they wanted him. Spann-Ford has all the tools to be a great tight end in the NFL. pic.twitter.com/cUx22A1LJp
— Noel Thompson (@N0ELTHOMPSON) April 28, 2024
The move didn’t pay off with a big boost to Spann-Ford’s draft stock; his numbers went down in 2023 and he struggled with drops in a disappointing final campaign that saw Minnesota finish 5-7 and Spann-Ford opt out of playing in the Quick Lane Bowl. (He did attend the Senior Bowl and caught a touchdown pass in the game.)
But the Cowboys saw something they liked, and they came calling after the draft ended.
“I’ll never forget this feeling,” Spann-Ford posted on X after news broke about his heading to Dallas. “Right back to work.”
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The Cowboys believe his work could be on John Fassel’s special teams unit.
“I don’t think you can have enough 6-4, 250-pound prototype players on your team. Especially with the [new] kickoff and kickoff return, I think that’s even more prominent,” McCarthy said, per the Dallas Morning News. “You want every position to be as competitive as it can be, and I think there are a lot more reps at special teams that will occur in these games.
“Tight ends, linebackers, outside linebackers: that body type will be pretty prominent, particularly in kickoff coverage.”
Prominent enough, it seems, to pay handsomely for.
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