- Messages
- 15,008
- Reaction score
- 2,093
By Tim Cowlishaw , Staff Columnist Contact Tim Cowlishaw on Twitter: @TimCowlishaw
While AT&T Stadium provided a glittering showcase for the NFL draft, the Cowboys spent three days 38 miles away in Frisco plugging holes on a roster that produced a 9-7 record last fall. It's crazy not to expect leaks to resurface in September when the local fawning stops and the players confront the reality of life in the NFC East.
Give this team a C, and pretend that stands for "Cowboys" if you choose.
That's not to suggest every pick was a failure or that someone who embraces a particular Cowboys selection is a hopeless cheerleader, although we have plenty tweeting and talking about this team. Surely some of the players chosen will enjoy fine NFL careers. Anyone who pretends to possess those answers now should be approached with extreme caution.
It's just that, taking one step back and looking at the overall product, it's hard to accept much of anything that Cowboys executive vice president Stephen Jones was selling this weekend.
For example, Jones said, "At the end of the day, we're not going to compromise our board to not go get the best player."
Round 1 -- LB Leighton Vander Esch, Boise State. Replaces the Cowboys' biggest loss in free agency, Anthony Hitchens to Kansas City.
Round 2 -- G Connor Williams, Texas. Cowboys' brain trust (i.e. the Jones family) talked at length about how this team would not repeat the Atlanta fiasco when Dak Prescott was sacked eight times, six by the same player abusing a team and a coaching staff that failed to replace the injured Tyron Smith.
Round 3 -- WR Michael Gallup, Colorado State. Serves as partial replacement for the released Dez Bryant, although Jones was quick to point out, once again, that no one individual replaces the club's all-time leader in touchdown catches. "I don't think we're going to live in a world right now that we used to live in with Dez, a true No. 1 guy,'' he said.
Round 4 (second pick) -- TE Dalton Schultz, Stanford. Will attempt to serve as replacement for soon-to-retire Jason Witten. The price the Cowboys pay for their "America's Team" fan base (and ratings) is that theirs is the only club that loses active players to multimillion-dollar TV roles.
That looks a heck of a lot like addressing needs to me. Not that there is anything wrong with doing exactly that, but it's always strange to hear a team (the Cowboys are not alone) boast of its draft board integrity when it's really all about getting better people than you had a year ago.
So have the Cowboys improved?
Given that each of 32 teams will welcome a dozen or more draft picks and free-agent signings in their next mini-camp, every team answers that with a yes. So what is the meaningful question?
I'd say it's more along the lines of whether the Cowboys improved their chances to finish with a better record than they had in 2017. And the answer to that right now has to be a resounding "no, not at all.''
I understand that the Ezekiel Elliott suspension hung over the team even before it finally fell into place at midseason last year. The only way I know to quantify that is that the Cowboys were 6-4 with him and 3-3 without him. And the first set of numbers includes a win that only head coach Jason Garrett got really excited about, a 6-0 victory in Philadelphia against Eagles backups about a month before the real team won a Super Bowl.
(Quick aside: If the Cowboys lose that final game, then they have Florida State safety Derwin James fall into their laps with the 17th pick. Interesting to consider what might have happened in that scenario.)
As for the coming season, the Giants added the best player in the draft according to anybody with a microphone or notepad or pair of coaching shorts. Running back Saquon Barkley will make a difference for that team. The tackle the club signed in free agency and the guard New York drafted at the top of Round 2 will help him, too.
Washington grabbed Alabama defensive tackle Da'Ron Payne in the middle of the first round. Last year the team picked Alabama defensive end Jonathan Allen in the opening round, and he played well before an injury in Week 6 knocked him out for the season. So it seems to me the club is, in effect, adding two Alabama starters to its defensive front along with LSU running back Derrius Guice, who slid to the bottom of the second round.
Washington and New York think they got better, too. They went 0-4 against the Cowboys last season as Dallas was just 4-6 in games played outside the division. This year the Cowboys play arguably the best division in the league (NFC South) along with the AFC South, which has two teams hoping to return to the playoffs and two more expecting Deshaun Watson and Andrew Luck to return and restore their hopes.
Jerry Jones spent a surprising amount of time talking about the future, about the team's needs beyond 2018 and the importance of keeping an eye on those while looking for help this year. That's normally the explanation used by a team quietly shifting into a rebuilding mode while calling it something else.
I don't think the Cowboys' expectations are that low. I just wonder why some observers think they should be quite so high.
