I guess we can say the bloom is off the rose with him. Once viewed as a genius but wow the recent record is bad. FAs and draft. I am too lazy to post them so take a look at the recent player moves. It’s bad. I am off the McClay bandwagon.
Thoughts?
Will McClay and the draft:
Will McClay has a solid approach to the draft, but you have to understand how that works with the Cowboys.
McClay builds a draft board based on talent.
He has a separate method for evaluating medical/character type issues.
He prepared a quick presentation type summary of players with regards to medical/character/intangibles that they review during the draft.
He will remove some players from the draft board is their character/medical are too bad relative to their talent.
He concluded that in the past the Cowboys have built in too much character/medical/intangibles into their draft board and then on draft days they somewhat double dipped on those issues pro or con for the player.
He has also tried to get a more balanced approach to coaches input than they had in the past.
Before McClay was the top guy in charge of the draft board, the scouting department didn't really talk to the coaches about the draft prior to the start of the draft.
That resulted in the DT Floyd fiasco where they had Floyd as the top player available at their pick but Marinelli stepped up and said he was not worth a 1st due to lack of scheme fit.
They ended up lucky by trading down at the last minute and drafting Frederick but that ordeal is the top reason that McClay was promoted and Ciskowski was demoted.
McClay preferred another player over Taco but they collectively let Marinelli have too much influence on the pick.
It has been a reasonable approach to the draft as compared to the complete insanity years such as when Jerry traded two 1st round picks for Joey Galloway without any investigation into the player and without any real negotiation on the trade parameters.
Parcells brought some stability to the draft when he was here but he also had a tendency to shoot from the hip. He picked Bobby Carpenter because he knew Carpenter's Dad. He was also heavily influenced by the fact that Jacob Rogers Dad was a coach.
Summary:
The results have not been perfect, but somehow Will McClay and Stephen Jones have kept crazy Jerry input on the draft to a minimum in the time since McClay was promoted to the top talent evaluator.
Unfortunately, in place of excessive Jerry input, they allowed to much crazy Marinelli input.