Gil Brandt: Why Cowboys shouldn't pick a quarterback in first round

boozeman

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Gil Brandt: Why Cowboys shouldn't pick a quarterback in first round and who they should go with instead


By SportsDayDFW.com Contact SportsDayDFW.com on Twitter: @SportsDayDFW


Former Cowboys vice president of player personnel Gil Brandt hopped on SportsDay's "Ballzy" podcast to talk about who the Cowboys should take in the NFL draft and the times he passed on Joe Montana and Dan Marino in the draft.


Here's an excerpt of the audio, which can be listened to in its entirety below.

https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/dmn-sportsday/id1005689250?mt=2

On taking a quarterback in the first round:

Brandt: "The question you ask yourself is, 'If we don't take a position player and we take a quarterback who probably won't play for a couple years, do we have enough people on our roster to be competitive to have a chance to get into the playoffs in 2016?"

Sherrington: "And the answer for you with the Cowboys is they're not. They probably need more players."

Brandt: "I would say they need more players on defense. I think they're OK offense, but I think they need more players on defense."

On the who the Cowboys should take at No. 4 overall:

Brandt:"Let me say this about the draft. You can get defensive backs. As an example, Jalen Ramsey at Florida State is a really good defensive back that is almost as good as Jalen Ramsey in the second or third round. You can't get a defensive lineman, or an offensive lineman in the second or third round that is as good as the ones you can get in the first round. It's going to come down to probably Joey Bosa, (DeForest) Buckner of Oregon are two players that are going to be there probably."

On Joey Bosa vs. DeForest Buckner:

Brandt: "One is very angular. Joey Bosa is a taller, thinner guy whose father was a No. 1 pick in the draft and is represented by the same man that represented his father. Buckner is represented by an agent in New York and is a very, very competitive player and is dominant. He was dominant at Oregon. It's one of those things where you pick your poison, because I think they're both good and it just depends on who you like better or who your coaches feel are better."

On almost drafting Joe Montana:

Brandt: "We set our board up and we went right down the list, but we had plateaus. So we might have a plateau where there is six players, but Montana is at the top of there. What took place was in the third round (1979) a guy by the name of Montana was there and Coach Landry was very interested in him. He said, 'Well, it sounds like he's pretty good, but what am I going to do with four quarterbacks?'"

Sherrington: "Because at that time, you still had Staubach, you still had Danny White and Glenn Carano."

Brandt: "So we passed. It's probably the only time we passed on a player. But we took a guy named Doug Cosbie. He turned out to be pretty good, but he didn't win four Super Bowls."

On passing on Dan Marino in the same draft:

Brandt: "We took Jim Jeffcoat instead. There were some concerns about Marino. ... We passed on Marino and took Jeffcoat, and Jeffcoat had a 100-plus sacks, played for 13 years. It would've been nice to have Marino, but we got a nice player in Jeffcoat."
-----------------

Time to take Gil out back and shoot him.
 

Cotton

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:jerk
 

L.T. Fan

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By his formula, Dallas will never be in a position to pick a QB in the first round because in their current condition they can only win with an upright Romo. The chances of that get less each season so they simply have to bite the bullet and pull the trigger now to break this cycle.
 

townsend

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This team, decimated as it was, still would have been in the playoffs with a decent QB under center. We probably would have been there with Weeden. So yeah a backup QB is pretty damn important to our playoff plans. Also like he even said, we can still get a QB and then upgrade at DB in the early 2nd or 3rd.
 

VA Cowboy

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At least he is right about Jalen Ramsey. No way is he worth a top 10 pick. There are going to be DB's in the early rounds on day two that are as good as he is.

I do want a QB, but if we pass in the first it better be for someone like Bosa or Buckner. But while they are probably going to be good players, it's not like either will put us over the top. If we take a QB he may not pan out, but I'd hate to end up with a Bosa/Buckner (another Jeffcoat) while possibly passing on another franchise caliber QB.
 

data

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Thank god for Cosbie. Montana would've done nothing to get us past three NFC championship losses. Especially with that progress stopper aka Glenn carano.
 

Clay_Allison

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When the biggest idiot in the history of Cowboys drafting (A man who foind one starter in the first three rounds of nine consecutive drafts) gives draft advice, run the other way.
 

dallen

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On Joey Bosa vs. DeForest Buckner:

Brandt: "One is very angular. Joey Bosa is a taller, thinner guy whose father was a No. 1 pick in the draft and is represented by the same man that represented his father. Buckner is represented by an agent in New York and is a very, very competitive player and is dominant. He was dominant at Oregon. It's one of those things where you pick your poison, because I think they're both good and it just depends on who you like better or who your coaches feel are better."

WTF does this have to do with anything?
 

dallen

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When the biggest idiot in the history of Cowboys drafting (A man who foind one starter in the first three rounds of nine consecutive drafts) gives draft advice, run the other way.
Well apparently a big part of his draft strategy was related to who a player's agent was
 

Cowboysrock55

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You have to love how the article mentions his fuckups by not taking a QB when he was making a decision. So basically yeah, his opinion is garbage clearly.
 

boozeman

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When the biggest idiot in the history of Cowboys drafting (A man who foind one starter in the first three rounds of nine consecutive drafts) gives draft advice, run the other way.
He is kind of overrated. His best picks were when we stole draft choices from other teams. He found a few like Thomas Henderson, but the Randy Whites and Too Tall Joneses were no brainers. He has a shit ton of blown choices in the top three rounds.
 

boozeman

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WTF does this have to do with anything?
If you listen to him on Sirius, that is what he does. He knows their shoe size and who their father is. But their translation to today's game is well, not his forte.
 

Carp

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The rationale is that by using the pick on QB we won't have enough players elsewhere. If we draft a QB at 4 then he is the back up quarterback...plain and simple. We had a back up QB this year too, so I'm having a hard time understanding where he is coming from.

He can only see what is right in front of him...he does not have the foresight to be competitive and to develop players.
 

GShock

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First JJT and now this.

Any chance this reflects the actual thinking in the organization?
 

ravidubey

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He is kind of overrated. His best picks were when we stole draft choices from other teams. He found a few like Thomas Henderson, but the Randy Whites and Too Tall Joneses were no brainers. He has a shit ton of blown choices in the top three rounds.
Brandt's 1980's 1st round picks: Howard Richards, Rod Hill, Jim Jeffcoat, Billy Cannon Jr., Michael Brooks, Mike Sherrard, Danny Noonan, Michael Irvin

That's a good combination of bad luck and incompetence with busts bolded and career-injured guys in red.

Rod Hill was the quintessential Gil Brandt computer pick, the kind of arrogance that signaled the team's downfall.
 

boozeman

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Brandt's 1980's 1st round picks: Howard Richards, Rod Hill, Jim Jeffcoat, Billy Cannon Jr., Michael Brooks, Mike Sherrard, Danny Noonan, Michael Irvin

That's a good combination of bad luck and incompetence with busts bolded and career-injured guys in red.

Rod Hill was the quintessential Gil Brandt computer pick, the kind of arrogance that signaled the team's downfall.
I still remember the Rod Hill pick. The ESPN guys (pre-Kiper ) were all like WTF. There was not even footage of him playing football available. Just one clip of him, in shirt and shorts, running a 40 in what looked to be an office hallway.
 

boozeman

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First JJT and now this.

Any chance this reflects the actual thinking in the organization?
Never heard of Brandt being on Jerry's flip phone speed dial. Now Lacewell is another story.
 

Clay_Allison

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He is kind of overrated. His best picks were when we stole draft choices from other teams. He found a few like Thomas Henderson, but the Randy Whites and Too Tall Joneses were no brainers. He has a shit ton of blown choices in the top three rounds.
I was mistaken, from 1978-1987 he found two starting players in the top 3 rounds. Jim Jeffcoat (after passing on Marino) and Doug Cosbie (after passing on Montana). He makes Jerry look like a draft wizard.
 
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