By the end of the weekend, 259 young men will have seen a dream come true by being drafted into the NFL. Another couple hundred will have gotten the call to join a team as an undrafted free agent. For all of them, life is about to change dramatically.
But no one- not even this year’s wide-eyed rookie class- will see more growth over the next few months of minicamps, OTAs, preseason, and roster cuts, than another group. These are the guys whose teams are expecting them to make the much-ballyhooed jump, the transition that happens- or doesn’t- that separates the players who flame out of the league early from the ones for whom it clicks and cements their place on an NFL roster.
Everyone will be talking abut the Class of 2023, but it will actually be the Classes of 2022 and 2021 that Cowboys head coach Mike McCarthy will be watching most intently.
“I’ve always felt that the most improvement that I’ve felt, the teams that I’ve coached,” McCarthy said this week at the pre-draft press conference, “are the people that are already here working. It’s your second-, third-year players that will take that jump.”
For the Cowboys, it’s a group that has already had a huge impact and shown tons of promise and potential.
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