Attention all those that hate our draft!

[5mics]

We drafted special teams players so our team better be dang good on special teams next year if you're willing to dedicate a draft towards it.

THIS was certainly the draft to do that! I just didn't see the value and quality of talent like previous drafts. I really like the DeAngelo Smith & Mike Mickens picks.

 

[wileedog]

Depends on how much you think of those ahead of you and what you think their value is.

Considering they picked up an OL who almost everyone thought would go two rounds later and a very raw small school ILBer, I find it hard to accept that those two picks were the exact same talent and production level as what was still available in the 2nd.

I'm sure Mickey and Co. are going to spin it that way, but there were still teams trading up into the 2nd for a reason.

Honestly I think we got lucky last year too in that certain things fell right for us, and unlucky this year that certain things didn't, and that is part of the equation too. Heck the 7th rounder Mickens may be the best player in the whole lot if his knee gets right, and it wasn't phenomenal scouting or anything that got him, just dumb luck.

 

[Bach]

I'd give it a B- grade.

If you look up my 4 mock drafts, I wanted Jason Williams on our team very, very badly. I had him either at #51 or #69, that's how much I wanted him in a Cowboy uniform. So, I'm very happy about the fact we grabbed him and I know a lot of teams hate us for taking him there. Brooking is a stop gap player and I wanted a Patrick Willis type of player there. Not saying Williams is going to be a Willis clone, but everything about him physically points in that direction for me. Brewster, McGee, Hamlin, Hodge and Mickens were solid picks where they were drafted IMO. I don't see anything wrong as far as talent, with those picks at those particular slots. The rest I'm not sure about, but we'll just see like so many other drafts.

Well, your grade is much higher than just about all the "experts". Even the local darling Gosselin gave us a "C" and just about everyone here thinks he's one of the best out there.

Most have us in the C to D range and is likely accurate.

With the offseason, Olshanksy in a guy I really like. Kitna is just an aging stopgap backup and so is Brooking at LB.

And the consensus is the draft below average while two other teams in the division did much better and that'll likely hurt us going forward.

 

[Dhragon]

Ireland play a part as did our current head of scouting Tom Ciskowski who was a big part of putting the draft board together. Ireland was out of here before that was ever done. I also have trust in Tom Ciskowski. You don't fine we will see what these players do and how off or on Tom Ciskowski was in his evaluation of these players

This is definitely Ciskowski's baby. Lord help him if he doesn't connect on a few. He will soon become an evil villian otherwise here on the zone.

 

[Bach]

And on the other side of the coin we could have taken 3-4 guys in the 2nd and 3rd round that many liked but there would still be a whole load of people on here hating the picks.

It works both ways.

You have examples or just throwing something out there?

I'd say if we had drafted 3-4 guys in the 2nd-3rd round that were 2nd -3rd round talent then most would be on board with it. Just like most were on board with the type of draft we had last year.

Funny how that works. Teams do a good job drafting and their draft gets praised and acknowledged. They do a poor job and it gets duly criticized. Go figure.

 

[Bach]

This is definitely Ciskowski's baby. Lord help him if he doesn't connect on a few. He will soon become an evil villian otherwise here on the zone.

Actually it depends on whether they go with his info and reports or not. The scouting director can provide all the info but if he isn't the one calling the shots in the war room and the coaches and Jerry opt for drafting special teamers or whatnot, then it all goes for naught. The main thing is you need to be able to compile the board and then trust it and make wise choices. Too often that hasn't been the case the last 20 years when Jimmy or Parcells haven't been in the room.

 

[Nexx]

You can't just look at this draft class in light of the past 2 days.

The fact is the make up of this draft class is the direct result of some bad personnel decisions in the past 3-5 years.

Jerry himself said that in his PC last night.

The decisions made over the weekend are designed to save Jerry $$ over the next few years.

That's not a criticism, that's just stating the facts. I hope these guys turn out to be good football players.

saving money in a good way not because he is cheap. he thinks the players he drafted will be players in a year or two. the players he thinks might not be ready now but have high ceilings with good coaching and development. this way he doesnt have to overpay aging vets, ie Greg Ellis, ie. Flozell Adams, or be hand cuffed by players who arent great but fill a huge need ie Ken Hamlin. Just being smart not cheap.

 

[Cowboy Junkie]

saving money in a good way not because he is cheap. he thinks the players he drafted will be players in a year or two. the players he thinks might not be ready now but have high ceilings with good coaching and development. this way he doesnt have to overpay aging vets, ie Greg Ellis, ie. Flozell Adams, or be hand cuffed by players who arent great but fill a huge need ie Ken Hamlin. Just being smart not cheap.

please tell me 7 guys the Cowboys drafted this year that have huge upside?
if there are 7 then they hit on over 50% , myself I would like to see 9 out of the 12

 

[Texan_Eph89]

I would be happier had we drafted Sean Smith (which we could have).
Other than that it wasn't all that bad. The K is an interesting prospect, maybe he'll play 3rd or 4th string DB.

 

[Silverstar]

Well, your grade is much higher than just about all the "experts". Even the local darling Gosselin gave us a "C" and just about everyone here thinks he's one of the best out there.

Most have us in the C to D range and is likely accurate.

With the offseason, Olshanksy in a guy I really like. Kitna is just an aging stopgap backup and so is Brooking at LB.

And the consensus is the draft below average while two other teams in the division did much better and that'll likely hurt us going forward.

Gosselin or any other writer isn't going to stick their neck out for a team without a 1st or 2nd round pick and why should they?

If Jason Williams and Robert Brewster become starters over Brooking and Kosier in 2010 and I think they can...this draft is a success with a B- grade. If McGee becomes our backup QB over Kitna, Beuhler stays as our #1 or #2 kicker regardless, and Hamlin unseats Sensabaugh at SS next year...it's a B+ grade. If Butler and B. Williams can replace Ellis and Carpenter at LB and Hodge and Smith become special team demons it's a A- grade...and so and so on. I think we got a B- draft right with J. Williams and Brewster aboard and the potential so have an A draft, if these other guys are hungry and can play special teams.

 

[Doomsay]

saving money in a good way not because he is cheap. he thinks the players he drafted will be players in a year or two. the players he thinks might not be ready now but have high ceilings with good coaching and development. this way he doesnt have to overpay aging vets, ie Greg Ellis, ie. Flozell Adams, or be hand cuffed by players who arent great but fill a huge need ie Ken Hamlin. Just being smart not cheap.

Only if you think that these guys can develop into starters, otherwise you'd have tom pay up for the positions in the future. Our offensive line comes to mind.

 

[Doomsday101]

Actually it depends on whether they go with his info and reports or not. The scouting director can provide all the info but if he isn't the one calling the shots in the war room and the coaches and Jerry opt for drafting special teamers or whatnot, then it all goes for naught. The main thing is you need to be able to compile the board and then trust it and make wise choices. Too often that hasn't been the case the last 20 years when Jimmy or Parcells haven't been in the room.

According to BP and Jerry the scouts have a heck of alot to say about where Dallas goes in a draft and who we select.

 

[Bach]

Gosselin or any other writer isn't going to stick their neck out for a team without a 1st or 2nd round pick and why should they?

If Jason Williams and Robert Brewster become starters over Brooking and Kosier in 2010 and I think they can...this draft is a success with a B- grade. If McGee becomes our backup QB over Kitna, Beuhler stays as our #1 or #2 kicker regardless, and Hamlin unseats Sensabaugh at SS next year...it's a B+ grade. If Butler and B. Williams can replace Ellis and Carpenter at LB and Hodge and Smith become special team demons it's a A- grade...and so and so on. I think we got a B- draft right with J. Williams and Brewster aboard and the potential so have an A draft, if these other guys are hungry and can play special teams.

That's a lot of "if's" but I hope you're right.

 

[Doomsday101]

IRVING – The Cowboys are depending on scouts more than ever for the upcoming NFL draft.

And conflicts such as one with former coach Bill Parcells should be a thing of the past.

The night before the 2003 draft, scouts and personnel people wanted the team to draft Terence Newman, the cornerback from Kansas State, if he was available.

Parcells preferred Oklahoma State defensive tackle Kevin Williams

Owner/general manager Jerry Jones took Parcells out to dinner and convinced him Newman was the better choice. The next day, Dallas selected Newman as the No. 5 pick in the first round, and he's started every game since.

"It's been off and on," said Larry Lacewell, the Cowboys' retired scouting director, who worked with Parcells in his first two seasons in Dallas. "Under Parcells, it was him. Before, it was scouts and whoever. ... We got Jerry and Stephen [Jones] to take him out and made him mad and told him we're going to take Newman."

Coaches wanting one player and scouts wanting another is a common occurrence in NFL draft rooms.

Under new coach Wade Phillips, scouts and personnel men will have more say than ever.

Phillips wants his coaches to focus on evaluating the current roster. Offensive coordinator Jason Garrett will implement new terminology and plays. Brian Stewart, the new defensive coordinator, is in charge of teaching the new way the 3-4 defense will be employed.

Coaches will still be involved, Jerry Jones said. "Just not as much. Again, that's more about the coaches giving information to your scouts. That's always what that was about, educating your scouts to the kind of skills and players that coaches might be interested in."

The change in thinking is the result of Parcells' departure at a time of year when coaches take a more active role in evaluating college talent, and the short time the new Cowboys coaches have had in scouting players.

Before Parcells retired Jan. 22, he had been scheduled to travel to the Senior Bowl in Mobile, Ala., with Jeff Ireland, the Cowboys' vice president of college and pro scouting, the scouts and Jerry Jones.

Ireland and his crew left without Parcells and Jones.

Jones had to find a new coach, and Ireland and his staff interviewed and reviewed tape of every player in the Senior Bowl.

Ireland said it was a difficult situation because he wasn't sure what a new coach was looking for. But, he said, if you do your homework in evaluating players, you can find them for any coach.

Jeff does a pretty darn good job at what he does," said Gil Brandt, the Cowboys' former vice president of player personnel who now works for NFL.com. "Look at what he's done the past few drafts, to get a [Patrick] Watkins in the fifth round and people like that. It's not hard to find a Calvin Johnson and Adrian Peterson. It's when you get in the second day of the draft, that's when it's hard."

When Phillips was hired on Feb. 8, Ireland was relieved, but he didn't know the new coach. He called friends who had worked with Phillips and was told he was direct, had excellent people skills and has a great knowledge of football.

Ireland trusted those people, and because he worked with Phillips' former boss in San Diego, Marty Schottenheimer, that was good enough for him.

Having scouts running things isn't such a big deal, Brandt and Jerry Jones said.

"I don't think it makes any difference, because they have a good system in place," Brandt said. "Jeff knows what the system is, and he's got experienced scouts that know what the system is."

Said Jerry Jones: "Theoretically, it's not supposed to be any different. It's that potential lobbying that you might have gotten [from the coaches] that might have influenced the draft board that you really shouldn't do. The guys that spend 100 percent of their time [scouting], that's what should be on the board."

 

[NeonNinja]

Bach, every team has a lot of "ifs" with their draft picks. And you can't grade a draft until after a few years.

 

[Doomsay]

saving money in a good way not because he is cheap.

He might be financially in trouble and not have an option.

 

[Shake_Tiller]

There is no way for me to prove this, but in general, I think the "big name" players who fall in the draft, particularly those who freefall, tend to have a high failure rate. I would surmise that it relates to the fact that if they were were on the radar screens of the Kipers and the McShays of the world for months leading to the draft, they were also on the radar screens of the NFL. Much was known about them, and for whatever reason, they were judged to have crippling shortcomings.

For that reason, I can't weep over missing the Michael Johnsons and the Duke Robinsons. I expect they have a higher than normal potential to be failures.

A guy like Leon Lett, or for an example of a lesser player, a guy like Patrick Crayton, were perceived to be poor choices, even in the lower rounds, because they hadn't been mentioned much by the secular draft analysts. But they were NFL caliber football players, obviously.

I can't get excited about this draft because I don't know much about the players Dallas chose. But I'm not discouraged by that lack of knowledge. I don't think it means much.

I'm also not particurly disappointed the Cowboys didn't parlay a 2009 pick or two into a 2010 pick. People keep waving the Patriots around as a model -- and over the course of the last decade, they are a great model -- but if you look at the past couple of years, you might conclude that New England has gotten too cute. You love their last couple of drafts?

We'll all know more about this draft in the next couple of years. Dallas has a pretty good recent track record. I'm going to choose to give the organization the benefit of the doubt. We'll see. I like the fact they appear to have targeted competitive, high character players with some necessary physical traits to excel in the NFL. That's as good a model as any.

 

[Deefens]

Im very happy...and it was a sexy draft to me. 7 fast and hard hitting defesive players that are going to be killers especially on st

 

[Doomsay]

Bach, every team has a lot of "ifs" with their draft picks. And you can't grade a draft until after a few years.

Fortunately, there are statistical correlations between player contribution and draft round. Lower draft picks generate lower success on average, but are cheaper. Jerry seems to be using a dartboard approach here to find cheap deals for immediate backups rather than stock the team with BPA's over the normal spectrum of draft rounds.

 

[jday]

Good luck with this thread David. The haters usually don't know why they hate ... they just do.

I thought we had a pretty solid draft overall. This year's draft wasn't about finding starters. It was about "churning the bottom of the roster" and putting veterans on notice about performance. I'm looking forward to a highly competitive TC.

This is the logic that doesn't make sense to me. Rather than look for potential starters, let's look for potential benchwarmers. Good call.

I think it's obvious to say I'd pick differently, but I'm not going to go into that. I think we all know that Jarron Gilbert was available when the Cowboys opted out of drafting. I think we all know Jason Phillips stayed on the board long enough for the Cowboys to pick him. I think we all know that James Casey was still available deep into the second day. Duke Robinson and Herman Johnson stuck around for quite some time. Johnny Knox was out there for awhile. But I'm not going to go there. My problem is this: I've read just about every article I possibly could have since draft talk began and the Cowboys preached Best Player Available throughout. And now in the wake of the draft all you can see them preaching about is Special Teams, which about half of this years crop of rookies were drafted specifically for. How is that following a BPA strategy? Is that not essentially drafting for need? Does anyone actually believe that any of the following players were the best players available at the given time they were drafted?

Western Illinois LB Jason Williams (third round, 69th overall) projected 4th-5th

Ball State OL Robert Brewster (third round, 75th overall) Projected 6th-7th

Texas A&M QB Stephen McGee (fourth round, 101st overall) projected 6th-7th

Oregon State DE/OLB Victor Butler (fourth round, 110th overall) projected 6th

Texas Tech DE/OLB Brandon Williams (fourth round, 120th overall) projected 4th-5th

Cincinnati CB/S DeAngelo Smith (fifth round, 143rd overall) projected 7th - FA

Clemson FS Michael Hamlin (fifth round, 166th overall) projected 3rd - 4th

USC K/special teamer David Buehler (fifth round, 172nd overall) projected 5th - 6th

TCU S/LB Stephen Hodge (sixth round, 197th overall) projected 7th - FA

Virginia TE John Phillips (sixth round, 208th overall) projected 6th - 7th

Cincinnati CB Mike Mickens (seventh round, 227th overall) projected 3rd - 4th

Oklahoma WR Manuel Johnson (seventh round, 229th overall) prjected 7th - FA

It seems to me, if they had their collective heart set on keeping the benches warm this coming season, the least they could have done was traded all their picks to own the 5th round and below and a few picks for next year rather than commit more money to an undeserving player who was drafted before he needed to be.