The Dallas Cowboys are very much a team which values their draft capital and prefers to build their roster through this method of cost-effective talent acquisition. Through the first half of the 2010s, the Cowboys had an incredible drafting run where they were able to add an impact player with their first-round pick as well as several other useful players who’ve stuck around over the years.
Their more recent drafts have been far less fruitful than what their reputation suggests, however. The book is far from written for many of these newer players, but it’s already wrapped up for the 2017 class, a relative disaster compared to the 2016 haul which brought in franchise quarterback Dak Prescott, star running back Ezekiel Elliott, linebacker Jaylon Smith and cornerback Anthony Brown.
Only two of the nine players the Cowboys drafted in 2017 remain with the team — CB Jourdan Lewis and WR Noah Brown signed three and one-year deals this offseason, respectively — and many of the holes the team tried to address then are still unfulfilled today. What went wrong for these players in Dallas, and is the fate of the next Cowboys draft picks scheduled to hit FA any brighter?