Watkins: Can this draft class have an impact?

Cotton

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Can this draft class have an impact?
April, 23, 2013

By Calvin Watkins | ESPNDallas.com

If the Dallas Cowboys miss the playoffs again it won't be an acceptable notion around Valley Ranch.

There has been many questions surrounding this upcoming draft class because the Cowboys just can't miss here. In some ways the Cowboys have to find a starter, or significant contributor in the first two rounds regardless if they trade down or up.

"We can say what we want about what we believe in as a coaching staff, but ultimately what we believe in is reflected most by the players we have," coach Jason Garrett said Monday. "In this case, the players we draft. I think we’ve done a good job over the last couple of years, bringing the kind of guys in who we think reflect the way we want to play. And we want to continue to do that. You want drafted players to play as quickly as they can play."

The Cowboys found first-round starters in the last three draft classes, and you could say second round picks in 2010 (Sean Lee) and 2011 (Bruce Carter) merged into the starting lineup.

However, outside of Morris Claiborne (2012 first rounder) the Cowboys didn't get much from the rest of that draft class. Tyrone Crawford (third round) and James Hanna (sixth round) showed some signs but Kyle Wilber (fourth rounder) and Matt Johnson (fourth rounder) were disappointments. Wilber on the field and Johnson's inability to get on the field due to hamstring injuries.

"We’ve been fortunate the last couple of years, Mo Claiborne was an instant starter for us and Tyron Smith was an instant starter for us," Garrett said. "We’ve had some guys come in and play early and really be contributors to our team,. You want to be able to do that again. I think one of the things we feel good about in our organization is we had two really good contributors last year, Claiborne and Tyrone Crawford, but we had some other guys who got banged up early last year and weren’t able to contribute as much as we wanted them to (in) fourth-round picks Wilber and Matt Johnson. James Hanna was a guy who emerged for us towards the end of the year. But we have guys from last year’s draft that we feel like we haven’t even seen yet because of injury, so we expect some things from them in terms of competing with players on our team, competing for roster spots, competing for playing time."
 

BipolarFuk

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If next year's draft is so much better then our strategy should be to try to trade every pick for picks in 2014. It will make it easier for the retard making the picks. Maybe.
 

Simpleton

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This isn't the NBA where you can see elite talent coming 3 years down the road. Nobody really has much of a clue if next year will be a much better draft than this year or not aside from the QB position.

Everybody says this draft is weak because generally speaking there isn't the headlining, elite talent at the top, but there is plenty of strength and depth at spots that our particular team has needs at.
 

Cowboysrock55

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If next year's draft is so much better then our strategy should be to try to trade every pick for picks in 2014. It will make it easier for the retard making the picks. Maybe.
I think next year is a much better draft at the top potentially. Of course that always depends on underclassmen who declare. With guys like Clowney, Bridgewater, Manziel, Marqise Lee, and Sammy Watkins. Those are some names that stick out to me that don't exist in this draft.
 

fortsbest

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I've been hearing like you have said, only about 15-17 top prospects and then 2-3 rounds of pretty decent talent. It should be hard for the Cowboys not to get at least 3 starters from this draft considering the lack of talent in some spots.
 
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