There are certain truths we can depend on in life. The Dallas Cowboys following these Draft Commandments is one of them.
The Dallas Cowboys find themselves in unchartered waters. It’s been 14 years since Jason Garrett hasn’t played a major role in the organization and the selection of their roster. Now, Mike McCarthy has control of the coaching reigns. The issue for predicting how things will play out, for those on the outside, is not knowing how much organizational control McCarthy has.
It took a while for Garrett to earn the gravitas to start influencing how the Jones family saw things through his lens. While McCarthy speaks of having more control than he ever did in Green Bay, it’s hard to envision him running the draft in 2020. So what does that mean for how Dallas will do their thing, especially with so much different about this offseason.
Due to the social distancing mandates, there will be no War Room, with everyone gathered around a conference room table with the big board off to the side of the camera. Instead, the coaches, front office and scouts are going to have to discuss options remotely, while also trying to navigate a Zoom conference call with the other 32 teams in the league. It’s going to be insanity and madness times infinity.
Beyond that, though, the face-to-face meetings that happen after the combine and while coaches are sent out to Pro Days to work out prospects never happened this year. It could be proven wrong, but there has to be a strong chance the Cowboys are going to do pretty much everything as they’ve done in the past, simply to avoid throwing more of a monkey wrench into an already-heightened zoo atmosphere.
If that’s the case, than the Cowboys Draft Commandments may have yet another year to go before the tectonic plates shift.
Over the last five years of the Garrett era, I decoded much of the process the Cowboys undertook to get to draft weekend. The commandments have changed a little over the years, but for the most part they’ve remained consistent trends and tells that provide backstory to most of the team’s picks year after year.
Will they stand up in 2020? Here’s a review of what they’ve been in the past.
Commandment No. 1: Thou shall take risks in Round 2
After a two-year sabbatical, this one came roaring back to life in 2019 when the team didn’t have a first-round pick. Some of the reaction to picking Trysten Hill was positive, but this tweet from Dan Shonka seems prophetic now.
The red flags had to do with being benched by his coaching staff at UCF and his apparent work habit and ethic issues. Coach Rod Marinelli feel in love with Hill during the pre-draft process when they spent Hill’s birthday together in a hotel room. That might be the biggest red flag of them all, but I digress.
Prior to Hill, the Cowboys had make the following high risk, high reward picks:
2016: Jaylon Smith – ACL injury/nerve damage
2015: Randy Gregory – failed combine drug test, admitted self-medic
2014: Demarcus Lawrence (trades 3rd round pick to move up in 2nd)
2013: Gavin Escobar
2012: Used to trade up for Morris Claiborne
2011: Bruce Carter – ACL injury
2010: Sean Lee – ACL injury
What will it be this year?
Commandment No. 2: Thou shall prioritize athleticism in your prospects
A few years ago, Dallas got hip to the elite athlete trend and focused on drafting players who were exceptional athletes. Production in college is nice, but a player has to have the athleticism in order to move that to the NFL level where the competition is bigger, faster and stronger. It really came to fruition in 2015 with a class that included SPARQ superstars including CB Byron Jones, who is a top-5 athlete in the recent history of the entire NFL.
Last year Hill had the seventh-highest Relative Athletic Score of all DTs, while McGovern had the eighth-highest RAS of all OL drafted. For a team without a Top 50 pick, that’s pretty dedicated to the philosophy.
In 2018, second round pick Connor Williams rated a 9.19 while Leighton Vander Esch was off the charts, on a scale up to 10.0.
