There the Dallas Cowboys sat, lucked into the perfect scenario. No one in their right mind figured they’d be this fortunate when they came on the clock for the first time in the draft. The team sat back and let team after team make selections without making an attempt to move up, and now had a clear chance to boost their talent base, with not just one player inexplicably sliding to them, but they had choice.
As mock draft after mock draft played out in the weeks leading up to draft weekend, it was wholly inconceivable the Cowboys would ever be this fortunate. Yet there they were, on the clock ready to seize the gift handed to them by the football gods.
Only the Cowboys zigged instead of zagged. Oh, you thought this was a retelling of how the club selected CeeDee Lamb? Silly rabbits, this is the tale of how just a year earlier, Dallas passed on the obvious choice of any of three safeties in Taylor Rapp, Nasir Adderley or Juan Thornhill and instead selected defensive tackle Trysten Hill.
Entering the 2019 draft, the safety position was largely seen as the achilles heel of the Dallas defense. The prior season had come to an inglorious end at the hands of the Los Angeles Rams’ rushing attack in the division round. Lasting memories of strong safety Jeff Heath looking the wrong direction as Goff scrambled for a crucial third-down conversion in the fourth quarter are etched in fan’s cerebrals.
The 2019 draft was celebrated to have several safeties who could start immediately, but after trading their first-round pick midseason for WR Amari Cooper, most felt Dallas was too far back at No. 58 to grab any of the top six prospects at the position.
So when their time on the clock came and not one, not two, but three of them sat waiting, it felt like the jackpot to the fanbase. Only Dallas didn’t select any of them. Despite a breakout season from NT Antwaun Woods, big money and a couple years remaining in Tyrone Crawford, Maliek Collins and free agent signings Christian Covington and Kerry Hyder, the club selected Hill.
The fuse of the fan’s short temper was lit before Hill ever donned the proverbial draft cap and then he failed to change their minds.
Hill’s Time at UCF
Drafted out of Central Florida, Hill had an interesting story that raised red flags in some quarters. Recruited as a 30-front nose tackle, Hill showed great promise as an 18-year old, notching a sack and five TFLs in nine games. He stepped that up to two sacks as a sophomore, but a coaching and scheme change moved him from budding prospect to a bench player.
Coach Scott Frost moved him to the bench in a 40-front and Hill started just one game though he notched three sacks and 10.5 TFLs.
There was plenty of discussion about Hill’s reported attitude problem as the reason he landed in Frost’s dog house, but defensive coordinator Rod Marinelli spent extensive time researching and with the young prospect predraft and convinced the team’s brass he was a diamond in the rough.
Marinelli, now in Las Vegas as the Raiders’ DL coach, also convinced the club to draft Taco Charlton – a player with apparent self-motivation issues who is now on his third NFL team in four years after being Dallas’ first-round pick in 2017.
He was really all-in on Hill, too.
Hill described his unique relationship with Marinelli at the 2019 Draft Class Luncheon.
“Leading up to the draft, he helped me with the whole process. You know, he was really that person I could talk to, call on the phone. He’d call me, hey how you doing, who talked to you, he wanted to know the inside stuff too, you know. With him, having him, you know kind of watch over me and guide me through it helped out tremendously. And when I was picked here, I mean not a lot of people get to go to the team they want to, so it was a blessing.”
Hill’s First Season and What’s Next
Hill couldn’t crack the rotation though, and was inactive the first two games of the season. He saw snaps in four of the next five contests and was generally ineffective, seeing his snaps decrease from 34 in Week 3 to just 13 in Week 7. He’d sit for several weeks before reemerging a bit, playing just 36 snaps from Week 12 on.
He recorded just four tackles on the season, two quarterback hits and no sacks.
That’s about as big a disappointment for a team’s first pick in a draft as one can imagine.
But all hope isn’t lost, or at least it shouldn’t be.
First and foremost, Hill’s extremely young, still the youngest member of Dallas’ DL at just 22 years old. Both defensive linemen drafted in 2020, Oklahoma’s Neville Gallimore is already 23 and Hill is two months behind Utah’s Bradlee Anae.
There was plenty of talk about Hill’s skill set when he was drafted, but he left school a year early rather then spend another season in Frost’s dog house.
If one views Hill as a draft pick who spent his senior season interning with an NFL club, gaining actual experience practicing against professionals, then the outlook on someone with his physical gifts warrant consideration as a redemption story.
Like Gallimore, Hill’s best trait is an insanely quick first step. If the rest of the package can come together, that elite trait is one that can be the basis of a solid NFL career.
Hill's quick first step jumps off the screen. Tough for a center to handle that kind of quickness/explosiveness off the snap. Hill can certainly penetrate and play in the backfield. pic.twitter.com/EId6IRMDli
— John Owning (@JohnOwning) April 10, 2019
After spending a year with Rod Marinelli, Hill will now work with DL wizard Jim Tomsula. The latter will be incorporating plenty of 30-front principles, which is where Hill showed a lot of promise at Central Florida. With a year of added strength, and lowered expectations, he could surprise in 2020.
Everyone wanted a safety, and then safety play in 2019 was underwhelming, further exacerbating the issue of Hill’s selection and lack of contribution.
With a gluttony of talent now ahead of him, starting with free agent signings Gerald McCoy and Dontari Poe, no one thinks Hill will be much of a contributor, and it could turn into the perfect opportunity for him.
This is part of our Countdown to the Regular Season player profile countdown. With 96 days remaining until the NFL’s first game, up next is defensive end Jalen Jelks.
Antwaun Woods | Tyrone Crawford
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