The Cowboys could target a defensive tackle early — it’s an impressive but short supply
By
Bob Sturm
6h ago
4
In the interest of full disclosure, I decided to change my own rules here in our ninth Draft Digest. To this point, they have all been six players, but in this edition, I wanted to give you the best five defensive tackles and then allow myself an extra cornerback for the 10th edition next week.
There is no doubt that the
Cowboys fancy help at defensive tackle, but the issue there is that the drop-off from the top bunch to the rest is substantial and with only one pick the top 57 selections, the supply will not meet the demand. Average defensive tackles do grow on trees in the later rounds, but these are the best of the best and won’t have to wait very long.
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As you know,
The Athletic’s Dane Brugler has been supplying our prospects through his amazing work and his latest
Top 100 list can be found here.
Without any further build-up, let’s look – in alphabetical order – what we believe are the top five defensive tackles in this class.
Keeanu Benton, Wisconsin: 6-4, 309, senior, age 21
Keeanu Benton is a very interesting player who emerged at the Senior Bowl as a force to consider. He is a three-star Wisconsin kid who was ranked the 85th-best defensive tackle in his recruiting class, but after his last two years of All-Big Ten play, it would seem that he has done a lot of growing in Madison.
Career stats