2 Dallas Draft Day Trends

[ZeroClub]

I think you may have missed the point a little bit. We don't really draft based on need, instead we tend to draft the best player who falls to us. As it turns out, a lot of times, that best player happens to be very athletic. We can take one of two things from that, either it's coincidence or a players athleticism factors highly into our grade. This may seem like a given but it's not. Some teams are more willing to take less polished, athletic guys and others look for more polished players, even if they aren't the most athletic. It's a difference in draft philosophy that boils down to what kind of risk/reward ratio teams are willing to take. The Cowboys tend to be willing to invest fairly high draft picks and take risks on athletic guys who need development (e.g. Martellus Bennett, Jason Williams, Isiah Stanback, etc). Even position conversions projects like Anthony Spencer tend to carry higher risks. To a large extent, the first three factors you list are non-issues for Dallas and don't seem to get much consideration.

The other two factors are what I was trying to delve into, namely, who do we rate highly (unpolished athletes over polished, less athletic players) and what types of players do we most often draft (players who have strength in the passing games).

The Anthony Spencer pick felt a lot like a need pick to me. The Cowboys seemed to know exactly what they needed -- a guy who could, in a year or two, start for the aging Greg Ellis. The team targeted Spencer and executed a few trades so that they didn't take Spencer too early (or miss him by going too late.)

It also could be argued that CB was a need pick the year Jenkins was drafted. The Cowboys picked Jenkins to be the guy who could, in a year or two, start for the somewhat disappointing Anthony Henry.

I could easily see the Cowboys applying similar logic to this draft by targeting a few OL who could, in a year or two, start at G or OT.

 

[superpunk]

Another trend is that we've really targeted athletes with early and mid round picks.


Felix Jones over Rashard Mendenhall.

Wouldn't this one go against your theory right here? Unless I'm misunderstanding what you mean by athlete. IIRC Mendenhall graded out better physically than Mr. Eight Reps at the Combine.

 

[masomenos]

The Anthony Spencer pick felt a lot like a need pick to me. The Cowboys seemed to know exactly what they needed -- a guy who could, in a year or two, start for the aging Greg Ellis. The team targeted Spencer and executed a few trades so that they didn't take Spencer too early (or miss him by going too late.)

It also could be argued that CB was a need pick the year Jenkins was drafted. The Cowboys picked Jenkins to be the guy who could, in a year or two, start for the somewhat disappointing Anthony Henry.

I could easily see the Cowboys applying similar logic to this draft by targeting a few OL who could, in a year or two, start at G or OT.

I see what you're saying and I agree that the picks of Spencer and Jenkins did fill eventual needs. However, at the same time, I think the argument can be made that Spencer and Jenkins were legitimately the best players available.

Like you, I could also see Dallas targeting a couple OL in this years draft. Why? Well, I would argue that it's because our passing games stands to see the most improvement by changing around the OL. As a unit, our OL was very average in pass protection. On an individual basis, the players on our OL were sometimes below average.

Flozell gave up 8 sacks, 9 hits and 35 pressures. Only 3 LT's who played in 10+ games allowed more pressures. With the same 10+ game criteria, only 6 allowed more hits and 9 allowed more sacks. Those are some bad, bad numbers.

Davis gave up 20 pressures, among the most of any interior lineman in the league. It's likely that those pressures didn't become sacks, simply because interior DL and blitzing ILB are generally slower than outside players. This also points to why Davis had so much trouble as a tackle in Arizona.

Of course, we do have some youth on the OL, ready to take over. Free really looks like he could be the answer at one of the OT positions and I wouldn't be shocked if he eventually took over Flo's spot. Brewster was picked up last year and will most likely be moved inside. Like Hos, I have a good feeling about Brewster developing into a quality player, even though he's something of an unknown at this point.

Using the logic that you pointed out, I would think that ILB would be an issue of concern heading into the draft. While we drafted Jason Williams last year, it's likely that we will need to replace both starters within the next two years. I would be surprised to see the position addressed with a first rounder, but I would not be entirely surprised if we grabbed an athletic guy like Sean Witherspoon if he fell and we had an opportunity to trade down and secure an extra pick. Alternatively, I wouldn't be surprised to see us go after a guy like Dekoda Watson or Daryl Washington.

 

[masomenos]

Wouldn't this one go against your theory right here? Unless I'm misunderstanding what you mean by athlete. IIRC Mendenhall graded out better physically than Mr. Eight Reps at the Combine.

In that case, I think that Felix's athletic ability comes more from his agility and natural running ability than from his upper body strength. If I remember correctly, I think Felix and Mendenhall had very similar combines other than the bench press and 40 splits. Mendenhall was much stronger, but Felix had a significantly faster burst, second only to Chris Johnson.