A Lesson Can Be Learned About Tight End Drafting

[Cowboysheelsreds053]

Cowboys have been terrible at drafting in the 2nd round for 26 years lol

And there’s plenty of receipts to back this up.

 

[xwalker]

LESSON: do not draft a TE in the second round. Odds not good
Third round is the sweet spot

Second round:
Anthony Fasano 2006, Terrible. Cost us a Super Bowl chance, dropping an easy pass in the end zone.
Martellus Bennett 2008, Talented, but was a head case and needed to start to be happy and was stuck behind Witten
Gavin Escobar 2013, Terrible
Luke Schoonmaker 2023, Terrible. Should have been a 4th to 5th round pick at best.

Thus, we have three out of four busts in the 2nd round.
____________________________________________________________________
But the 3rd round? Doug Cosbie 1979. Loved this 6'6" athletic and productive receiving TE with long arms. Made Danny White look good. If he were starting today, he would make 2-3 splash plays a game when Lamb and Pickens draw all the attention.

and Jason Witten 2003 Nothing to say other than Boys' best ever

4th round: Dalton Schultz 2018, solid to very good, far better than Ferguson who has lost three steps; Dalton left us for a bigger salary.
and Jake Ferguson, in steady decline. Very sad after his early pass catching prowess
Eric Bjornson 1997 Two year starter, modest results; the staff thought he would be another Jay Novacek

First Round:
Billy Joe Dupree 1973, instant starter, sent Mike Ditka into retirement. Highly talented, great blocker and caught whatever was thrown his way; clutch, tough, durable, 10 year starter.

David LaFleur 1997 Biggest bust ever for a skilled position player in the first round. A big stiff, slow unathletic body. Aikman recommended him. What a collossal mistake, Troy!!!

Jay Novacek was a Plan B free agent, stolen from the Cardinals and was Troy's safety valve and sure handed. Very athletic and quick. He could gain separation al day long. Three-time Super Bowl champ.

Were these TEs drafted in the 2nd?
LaPorta
McBride
Gronk

 

[beware_d-ware]

What bums me out is that the Cowboys have stumbled on the secret to finding a TE, and they refuse to commit to it.

TE is not a matchup position. You don't need to be a premier NFL athlete to succeed at TE. The NFL's best TEs are premier athletes, and a lot of them went top 50. But if your offense just asks a guy to run a hitch route and fall down, you don't need an elite athlete to do that at all - look at old man Witten. And pedestrian athletes at low value positions are crazy cheap and easy to find.

TE is like RB in that way. You can find players with 80% of the game of the studs, who cost 10% as much.

So the Cowboys have got away for a decade by basically streaming Day 3 and UDFA tight ends... signing them, developing them on the bench for 1-2 seasons, playing them once they're ready, then moving on. Look at our starting TEs post-Witten. Geoff Swaim, Blake Jarwin, Schultz, Fergy, now BSF... we never spent more than a 4th on any of them. None of them were studs, but we didn't need them to be. They are #3 and #4 passing game options that we can keep finding for almost free.

The two big mistakes we've made since then are drafting Schoon (panic reach) and paying Fergy (weird Jerry spite thing with Parsons), and both of those mistakes were self-inflicted.

I wouldn't have minded paying Schultz and patching up our TE situation for the long term, but didn't mind letting him walk either. Schultz has delivered solid-vet play in Houston for solid-vet money, so nothing wrong with that deal. We replaced Schultz with the much-cheaper Fergy for 1-2 seasons, so you could say that was good moneyball by the FO, but then we paid Fergy and drafted Schoon and threw all those savings plus more away.

Why we paid Fergy after he got hurt is mind blowing to me. We should have churned him after his rookie contract.

 

[john van brocklin]

LESSON: do not draft a TE in the second round. Odds not good
Third round is the sweet spot

Second round:
Anthony Fasano 2006, Terrible. Cost us a Super Bowl chance, dropping an easy pass in the end zone.
Martellus Bennett 2008, Talented, but was a head case and needed to start to be happy and was stuck behind Witten
Gavin Escobar 2013, Terrible
Luke Schoonmaker 2023, Terrible. Should have been a 4th to 5th round pick at best.

Thus, we have three out of four busts in the 2nd round.
____________________________________________________________________
But the 3rd round? Doug Cosbie 1979. Loved this 6'6" athletic and productive receiving TE with long arms. Made Danny White look good. If he were starting today, he would make 2-3 splash plays a game when Lamb and Pickens draw all the attention.

and Jason Witten 2003 Nothing to say other than Boys' best ever

4th round: Dalton Schultz 2018, solid to very good, far better than Ferguson who has lost three steps; Dalton left us for a bigger salary.
and Jake Ferguson, in steady decline. Very sad after his early pass catching prowess
Eric Bjornson 1997 Two year starter, modest results; the staff thought he would be another Jay Novacek

First Round:
Billy Joe Dupree 1973, instant starter, sent Mike Ditka into retirement. Highly talented, great blocker and caught whatever was thrown his way; clutch, tough, durable, 10 year starter.

David LaFleur 1997 Biggest bust ever for a skilled position player in the first round. A big stiff, slow unathletic body. Aikman recommended him. What a collossal mistake, Troy!!!

Jay Novacek was a Plan B free agent, stolen from the Cardinals and was Troy's safety valve and sure handed. Very athletic and quick. He could gain separation al day long. Three-time Super Bowl champ.

Most of those greats were drafted in our Glory days.
The lesson to be learned is that this current front office can't draft a decent TE to save their lives.
I give Parcels the credit for Jason.