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SportsDay Cowboys insiders David Moore and Brandon George recently joined hosts Barry Horn, Kevin Sherrington and Evan Grant on Ballzy podcast. Here are some highlights:
Why the QB pipeline wasn't shocking
Moore: I thought they would win 10 even with Romo hurt early. ... Jason Garrett has been here long enough where if [all his talk about culture] is true then you can absorb injuries even to key players because your system is in place and works for all your players. I took that to the backup quarterback position as well. [Garrett] had been here for six seasons and if you can't find a backup quarterback in six seasons, your stewardship with the franchise is not what it should be. Dak Prescott bailed them out in a lot of ways.
Grant: Don't you need help from the draft?
Moore: You can't continue to go that long knowing what Tony Romo's injury history is without developing a quarterback through the draft or getting a veteran quarterback who you're confident turning the team over to for extended stretches. I thought they'd approached that in a very odd manner.
Sherrington: That's a nice way to put it. The guy who's putting those drafts together lately is Will McClay, and he's done a tremendous job. How much longer will the Cowboys be able to hold on to him before another team hires him at GM?
Moore: Money won't be an issue. They'll pay beyond what the actual position is because he will never be general manager of the team - that's Jerry Jones/Stephen Jones and really it's Stephen on a day-to-day basis more than Jerry and neither one of them is going anywhere. They'll pay beyond what the position title is but at some point, teams in this league know that Will is the guy with the feet on the ground and the guy doing all the work, putting it all together and organizing it. There has been a continuity in the draft the last 3-4 years that had been missing in this organization.
Horn: Does he have the ego to stay behind the scenes or will he want to get out there getting credit?
Moore: Will doesn't have an overriding ego. Will's not a guy who's 'look at me, look what I put together, look what I think.' He's a collaborative guy, he enjoys the background in a lot of ways, he likes being part of a team and is willing to buy in on this is a collective process. In some ways he's almost more of a mediator than a dictator when it comes to these decisions.
But I think there's a little beyond just ego. If you think you're prepared and you're comfortable making all these decisions and your instincts and your preparations lead you to make the best decisions, you feel like 'I'm ready for the next step. And while I don't necessarily like the attention that comes with being a general manager, I certainly have a skill set to do it and want to prove I can be the one who has the final say.'
Ego as far as calling attention to yourself, no. But as far as the pride you take in your work and to expand that role, yeah. So I guess that's a long-winded way of saying I think he'd still be comfortable staying here behind the scenes but that doesn't dismiss the fact that if the right situation came up he would want to take that.
Senior Bowl: A prospect not much mentioned yet
Sherrington: Who is there for the Cowboys?
George: Jerry and Stephen are going to be here for practice today, tomorrow. Will McClay's here, the scouting staff is here and the coaches are at the Pro Bowl. You'd rather [coaches] be here on the ground scouting future pass-rushers than coaching Pro Bowlers.
George: Defensive ends have been the need for years now with the Cowboys. The big guy here everyone's kind of watching is Jordan Willis, the Kansas State kid. I think he had like 15 sacks and 80-something pressures.
He measured in at 6-3, 255 today. It was a meat market.
