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

Plan9Misfit

Appreciate The Hate
Joined
Apr 7, 2013
Messages
5,837
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.
In other words, he's continually ok with passing on QBs for positional players who don't go on to have HOF careers. Good to know.
 

boozeman

28 Years And Counting...
Staff member
Joined
Apr 7, 2013
Messages
121,759
In other words, he's continually ok with passing on QBs for positional players who don't go on to have HOF careers. Good to know.
Brandt and that era of the Cowboys never suffered for a QB either until the end of Landry's era.

Originally there was Meredith, who transitioned to Morton.

Morton was not all world, but he was good enough to win games with, even got them to their first SB.

Then Staubach.

Then Danny White, who again, good enough that you can win with.

Then in 1984 or so, they started feeling the pain. They went through crap like Gary Hogeboom, Kevin Sweeney and Steve Pelluer.

Once they finally lost enough to pick at the top of the draft and got over being stubborn realized they needed a QB, Jones bought the team and got Aikman.

Long story short, Gil Brandt should understand what brought him and Landry down was partially the QB situation and he is advocating doing the same shit again.
 

Genghis Khan

The worst version of myself
Joined
Apr 7, 2013
Messages
37,486
Same with Jones. We were mediocre to bad between aikman and Romo. And while the teams struggles run deeper than just QB, we collapse any time romo gets hurt.

I would hope Jones would recognize by now how important it is to find Romo's replacement. I would hope.
 

townsend

Banned
Joined
Apr 11, 2013
Messages
5,377
Same with Jones. We were mediocre to bad between aikman and Romo. And while the teams struggles run deeper than just QB, we collapse any time romo gets hurt.

I would hope Jones would recognize by now how important it is to find Romo's replacement. I would hope.
In the front office's defense they absolutely made the right call passing on Manziel for Martin, and there was jack and shit for QBs at our first pick in 2015, same with 2013. This is the first time we've been in striking distance of a franchise QB since 2005.
 

VA Cowboy

Brand New Member
Joined
Apr 8, 2013
Messages
4,710
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.
I had almost forgotten how bad those drafts were. 12 rounds in those days and a year or two we didn't come up with any contributors, let alone starters. A couple of other years we ended up with 1-2 borderline starters. The only thing that kept us afloat as long as we were was actually hitting on some undrafted players. In '81 we added undrafted FA's Everson Walls and Michael Downs who both started as rookies and nearly helped us get to the SB.

It's just sickening though to look back on. Teams like the 49ers, Bears, Giants each had several killer drafts in those days. Some of them netted 3-4 pro-bowlers/solid starters in one draft. And did that 2-3 times during that span. Meanwhile the Cowboys were lucky to manage 1-2 marginal starters most years. Much was attributed to the Cowboys drafting near the bottom. But the same years we whiffed on a guy in the 1st or 2nd, another team landed a future pro-bowler in the 2nd or 3rd. Also some of those teams drafted well even after the won SB's and drafted at the bottom.
 

Clay_Allison

Old Bastard
Joined
Apr 8, 2013
Messages
5,488
I had almost forgotten how bad those drafts were. 12 rounds in those days and a year or two we didn't come up with any contributors, let alone starters. A couple of other years we ended up with 1-2 borderline starters. The only thing that kept us afloat as long as we were was actually hitting on some undrafted players. In '81 we added undrafted FA's Everson Walls and Michael Downs who both started as rookies and nearly helped us get to the SB.

It's just sickening though to look back on. Teams like the 49ers, Bears, Giants each had several killer drafts in those days. Some of them netted 3-4 pro-bowlers/solid starters in one draft. And did that 2-3 times during that span. Meanwhile the Cowboys were lucky to manage 1-2 marginal starters most years. Much was attributed to the Cowboys drafting near the bottom. But the same years we whiffed on a guy in the 1st or 2nd, another team landed a future pro-bowler in the 2nd or 3rd. Also some of those teams drafted well even after the won SB's and drafted at the bottom.
We passed on about a dozen Hall of Famers in that span.
 

Genghis Khan

The worst version of myself
Joined
Apr 7, 2013
Messages
37,486
In the front office's defense they absolutely made the right call passing on Manziel for Martin, and there was jack and shit for QBs at our first pick in 2015, same with 2013. This is the first time we've been in striking distance of a franchise QB since 2005.
I'm talking about going forward. You could argue for guys like Bridgewater or Carr, whom we had shots at. But I'm not talking about that, I'm talking about the bullshit efforts we made to find a franchise QB between 2000 and 2005.
 

townsend

Banned
Joined
Apr 11, 2013
Messages
5,377
I'm talking about going forward. You could argue for guys like Bridgewater or Carr, whom we had shots at. But I'm not talking about that, I'm talking about the bullshit efforts we made to find a franchise QB between 2000 and 2005.
Fair point, although nothing says we haven't learned from our mistakes like having Chad Hutchinson's QB coach on staff.
 

Plan9Misfit

Appreciate The Hate
Joined
Apr 7, 2013
Messages
5,837
Brandt and that era of the Cowboys never suffered for a QB either until the end of Landry's era.

Originally there was Meredith, who transitioned to Morton.

Morton was not all world, but he was good enough to win games with, even got them to their first SB.

Then Staubach.

Then Danny White, who again, good enough that you can win with.

Then in 1984 or so, they started feeling the pain. They went through crap like Gary Hogeboom, Kevin Sweeney and Steve Pelluer.

Once they finally lost enough to pick at the top of the draft and got over being stubborn realized they needed a QB, Jones bought the team and got Aikman.

Long story short, Gil Brandt should understand what brought him and Landry down was partially the QB situation and he is advocating doing the same shit again.
I grew up in the Danny White era, so I vividly remember all of Brandt's bullshit miscues. The problem is that he clearly never learned from his mistakes, and neither did mental simpleton's like Lacewell. And given the fact that at least one of them still has Joan Rivers' ear, it greatly concerns me that we'll plummet right back into the mid-80s QB misery.
 

Plan9Misfit

Appreciate The Hate
Joined
Apr 7, 2013
Messages
5,837
In the front office's defense they absolutely made the right call passing on Manziel for Martin, and there was jack and shit for QBs at our first pick in 2015, same with 2013. This is the first time we've been in striking distance of a franchise QB since 2005.
We could've drafted Derek Carr in 2014. In fact, we passed on him twice.
 

L.T. Fan

I'm Easy If You Are
Joined
Apr 7, 2013
Messages
21,689
I grew up in the Danny White era, so I vividly remember all of Brandt's bullshit miscues. The problem is that he clearly never learned from his mistakes, and neither did mental simpleton's like Lacewell. And given the fact that at least one of them still has Joan Rivers' ear, it greatly concerns me that we'll plummet right back into the mid-80s QB misery.
I don recall Pelleur Bering a bad QB.
 

Plan9Misfit

Appreciate The Hate
Joined
Apr 7, 2013
Messages
5,837
I don recall Pelleur Bering a bad QB.
Pelluer wasn't a very good one, either. He was a 3rd string guy who really shouldn't have been anything else.
 

Clay_Allison

Old Bastard
Joined
Apr 8, 2013
Messages
5,488
Pelluer wasn't a very good one, either. He was a 3rd string guy who really shouldn't have been anything else.
I thought they should have started him over Aikman in 1989 just to save Aikman the beating. Pelleur was a big mofo that could take a hit and run a little. I think we shortened Aikman's career starting him as a rookie behind that shit OL.
 

Plan9Misfit

Appreciate The Hate
Joined
Apr 7, 2013
Messages
5,837
I thought they should have started him over Aikman in 1989 just to save Aikman the beating. Pelleur was a big mofo that could take a hit and run a little. I think we shortened Aikman's career starting him as a rookie behind that shit OL.
You need to remember that he immediately started screaming to be traded the moment we drafted Aikman and Walsh. There was no way that he was going to stick around, so naming him the starter wouldn't have accomplished anything because he knew that he was going to be the odd man out no matter what.
 

Clay_Allison

Old Bastard
Joined
Apr 8, 2013
Messages
5,488
You need to remember that he immediately started screaming to be traded the moment we drafted Aikman and Walsh. There was no way that he was going to stick around, so naming him the starter wouldn't have accomplished anything because he knew that he was going to be the odd man out no matter what.
Drafting Walsh was also stupid, we ended up getting something out of that by trading him, which is nice, but we screwed ourselves out of either Cortez Kennedy or Junior Seau by doing that.
 

marsbennett

Brand New Member
Joined
Apr 26, 2013
Messages
330
Drafting Walsh was also stupid, we ended up getting something out of that by trading him, which is nice, but we screwed ourselves out of either Cortez Kennedy or Junior Seau by doing that.
Painful. But factor in the Walsh trade picks.
 

Joe Fan

Brand New Member
Joined
Dec 7, 2015
Messages
1,647
And the Panthers just showed everyone why you should.

What's your point Brandt?
 

boozeman

28 Years And Counting...
Staff member
Joined
Apr 7, 2013
Messages
121,759
And the Panthers just showed everyone why you should.

What's your point Brandt?
Just being chicken shit.

Being a Dallas Cowboy QB has always been viewed as some divine right.

Like the guy that does it was "chosen".

We have been pretty fucking lucky that most that have fallen into the job have been pretty decent.

So now you have this fucking stupid idea that we are different from any other QB starved team.

That somehow, some undrafted waif like Romo will drop out of the sky.

No, sorry.

Being the QB of the Dallas Cowboys is not decided by divine intervention.

We might have to actually earn it this time.

By drafting a guy, and developing him. With that ungodly pressure.

Oh woe is us.
 
Top Bottom