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By Jon Machota and Dane Brugler 51m ago
The NFL Draft is only nine weeks away. The league’s annual scouting combine takes place next week in Indianapolis.
This is a critical time of year for all teams, but especially for the Cowboys, who again aren’t expected to spend significantly in free agency. Several of their biggest roster upgrades will come during the seven rounds at the end of April.
Over the past two years, Dallas has drafted the following starters: WR CeeDee Lamb, CB Trevon Diggs, DT Neville Gallimore, C Tyler Biadasz, LB Micah Parsons and DT Osa Odighizuwa. CB Kelvin Joseph and LB Jabril Cox could be joining that group very soon. It shouldn’t come as a surprise to see the Cowboys add two or three more in this year’s draft class, beginning with the 24th overall pick.
To get a better idea of where Dallas might be able to improve, I called up Dane Brugler, The Athletic’s NFL Draft expert, to get his thoughts on this year’s draft class. Here’s our conversation.
When you look at this entire class, what stands out most and what would you say are the strengths and weaknesses?
With this one, it’s the lack of high-end talent at the top. It’s not a great year to be picking in the top 10, top 15. There are still good players there, but relative to normal years or past years, it’s just a little different. But the depth between the late-first and second round, third round, fourth round, the depth is outstanding, especially at some key positions. This is one of the deepest pass-rushing groups I can remember. There’s going to be the guys at the top with Aidan Hutchinson (Michigan) and Kayvon Thibodeaux (Oregon) and a few other guys, but that stretches into Day 2 and Day 3. There are a lot of quality pass rushers who could come in and impact the roster. Maybe they start off in nickel or sub-package players and grow into starters, so pass rusher is at the top.
Fighting it out for maybe the next best position this year is probably linebacker, wide receiver, at least top 100. I think wide receiver tails off a little bit on Day 3. Offensive tackle and cornerback are also in there. I think those positions have pretty good depth. Linebackers, you can feel really good about finding guys in the second, third, fourth round. We know the offensive tackles go early, so we’re going to see a lot in the first round, four or five. But I think there’s still quality to be found on Day 2.
The weakest positions this year, it’s a weird tight end year. It’s a really deep group. We might have 12-15 tight ends drafted on Day 3. But I didn’t have a tight end in my top 50. We’ll have three or four tight ends drafted on Day 2. The strength of the group is in the fourth round. That’s where you’re going to find your Dalton Schultz-type guys. It’s not a strong year if you’re looking for a tight end in the first round or even, in my opinion, somewhere in the top 50. It’s a good but not great running back class. Quarterback might be the weakest position this year. A lot of uncertainty. Defensive tackle is middle of the road. It’s not a strong class, it’s not a weak class.
Treylon Burks (Butch Dill / USA Today)
That’s good news for the Cowboys, particularly at edge rusher, linebacker and wide receiver. They’ve shown over the last couple of years that they’ll take the best player available regardless of need, with Lamb and Parsons. If they go with a similar approach again, who are some top prospects who could potentially slide that would be a great get for Dallas at 24?
It’s an interesting year at wide receiver. There are six who should go in the first round. The order will be interesting. It just depends on the type of receiver you want. If the right one is there and they want to entertain it at 24, Garrett Wilson (Ohio State) is very similar to CeeDee Lamb when you talk about body control and ball skills. Treylon Burks (Arkansas) is a linebacker-sized Deebo Samuel, that’s kind of how I look at him and that’s obviously something that is going to help him in the process.
I think pass rusher is a position that if one fell to 24 it would make them think. Jermaine Johnson (Florida State) is equally good as a run defender as he is a pass rusher. He can impact the backfield in a lot of different ways. He’s long, strong, there’s nuance to his pass rush. He was the top defensive player going into the Senior Bowl. He only put an exclamation mark on that, so I have a tough time seeing him fall out of the top 20, but you never know. George Karlaftis (Purdue) is the interesting one because he’s not super long, he doesn’t have great twitch, his three-cone drill probably won’t be great. But he’s got NFL power and he understands how to use his hands, so he can break down the rhythm of blockers. He’s not going to be for everybody type first-round pass rusher. Some teams want the twitchy, bend the edge, speed rushers. Karlaftis is just a little different. Because of that, he could get pushed down a little bit and he could be there at 24. That would be an interesting fit.
Dax Hill (Michigan) is a really interesting defensive back. In a lot of ways, he’s kind of the modern-day perfect nickel defender. He can cover the slot, he can play more of a split safety role. He can really do everything you want. I wish he was a little bit bigger. He’s probably going to come in around 195 pounds, but his versatile package of skills, the athleticism, the toughness, the football IQ, that really makes him a big-time player. Watching him blitz, watching him against the run, watching him cover the slot receiver routes, he can really do it all. I think he’s going to test really well at the combine. If he’s there at 24, to me, it makes a lot of sense.
And 24 could be where we see the first defensive tackle off the board. Both Georgia guys, Jordan Davis and Devonte Wyatt, the nose tackle and the three-technique. That could be a position as well. Nakobe Dean (Georgia) and Devin Lloyd (Utah) are the top two linebackers this year. If one of them fell to 24, that could be a direction they go. Every level of the defense could be something that they’re looking at there.
Since you talked about the great edge rushing class, what if the Cowboys don’t get one in the first round? Could they still get a quality player in the third or fourth round or would they have to be looking in the second?
The longer you wait, the more you sacrifice just in terms of impact or three-down potential. If you wait until the fourth round, you’re dealing with more of a developmental (player). Once in a while you’ll see someone like Maxx Crosby fall to the fourth round, but it’s rare to see impact pass rushers come from the fourth round and beyond. Usually, those guys are in the top 100 and it’ll probably be more of the same this year where a guy like Arnold Ebiketie (Penn State) will probably be somewhere in that second-round mix. He’s got one of the best motors in this entire draft. He makes plays all over the line of scrimmage that he has no business making, but his effort is just outstanding. He’s long, he’s twitched up, the motor and the menatility. The more I talk about him the more I doubt he’s going to be there in the second round for the Cowboys, but it doesn’t end there.
Kingsley Enagbare (South Carolina) is more of a power rusher. He has more power than speed, but he’s still a good player and he could fill a need for the Cowboys. Boye Mafe (Minnesota) is going to test off the charts at the combine. I question his ability against the run but he can get after the quarterback, so that’s going to prop him up a little bit. We could talk a long time about the pass rushers and all the different types of guys that will be available in Rounds 2 through 4.
Zion Johnson (77) (Winslow Townson / USA Today)
We definitely have to discuss the offensive line with how much that group underperformed last season. Left guard is the biggest area of need. Are there worthy candidates at the 24th pick or could the Cowboys find a potential starter in the second or third round?
I could absolutely see this team draft an interior lineman at 24. It would not be a reach. Kenyon Green (Texas A&M), Zion Johnson (Boston College), that wouldn’t be too early for either one of those players. Johnson is one of the smartest players in this draft. I love his background. He was a golfer most of his life. He didn’t really play football until his senior year of high school. He goes to Davidson, non-scholarship, transfers to Boston College and just really turned himself into a high-level prospect. He’s smart, team captain, has position versatility, double-digit starts at left guard, left tackle and right tackle in college and also played center at the Senior Bowl. He’s patient, he has hand placement, muscle twitch and reaction skills. He just checks a lot of boxes. I think with his versatility and skill set would be a slam dunk at 24.
Green is another guy with versatility. He started four different positions last year alone as a junior. His balance is what I like most about him. Before and after contact, he has tremendous balance. He’s mobile, he’s got that brawling mentality that you want. Green and Johnson would be plug-and-play starters. If you draft a guard in the first round, it better be a guy that is going to come in and impact the team right away and I think both would.
Tyler Linderbaum (Iowa) is a prospect with such a unique variance of where he could be drafted. He is one of the best players in the draft, so he could go in the first dozen picks. But only so many teams need a center or would draft one in the first round, so that eliminates several teams. Then you factor in that he is a center-only and scheme-specific, that crosses off several more teams. When you frame it like that, it becomes more realistic that Linderbaum could be available in the mid-20s and someone the Cowboys could draft at 24.
The last one I had is about the overall reputation of the Cowboys in the draft. They seem to find more than their share of quality prospects in the draft. How would you say they rank among NFL teams when it comes to drafting?
I think they’re probably upper-middle. I think they’re not the best drafting team but it would be a disservice to say they’re middle of the road. They have their share of misses. Picking Taco Charlton over T.J. Watt is going to haunt them. It’ll be something they talk about for years and years. But it’s easy to focus on a negative when you can look at the positives and see that even in a draft when they take Trysten Hill as their first pick, they get Tony Pollard in the fourth round. In 2020, they lucked into CeeDee Lamb, but they stayed put and got Trevon Diggs at 51. So they round it out with guys who are contributors later on.
We can talk about how they might need to upgrade the center position, but Tyler Biadasz has been what you want from a player who was drafted in the late fourth round. Sometimes you need to get lucky with a Dak Prescott, but every year they seem to have a pick on Day 3 that you could really point to and say that’s someone who helps round out a roster, whether it’s a Dalton Schultz or Cedrick Wilson.
Every team has misses. I applaud the Cowboys for having such a collaborative process with the coaching and the scouting staff and the front office. Everybody is involved with building the board and choosing who to draft, but I think sometimes they’re a little too married to maybe some preferences by the coaches. That’s how you end up with Trysten Hill and Taco Charlton. But I do give them credit for being collaborative in their process. It helps lower the bust rate because you know you’re drafting players that your coaches want to coach and they fit the scheme.
