News: BR: With Drafting of Gregory, Cowboys Continue Dubious but Perhaps Winning Strategy

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CHICAGO — So, just to recap, the Cowboys now have Greg Hardy, Dez Bryant and Randy Gregory on the same team. Hopefully Jerry Jones has built more into the budget for legal fees.

Bryant seems to have turned his life around but there is little question he remains one of the most volatile figures in the sport. Greg Hardy, well, is Greg Hardy. He decided on Friday night to make a joke about the worst terror attacks in American history, Pro Football Talk, among others, reported. Because terrorism is always really, really funny. Like Hitler jokes.

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Then, as Gregory was falling in the draft like a piece of lead was attached to him, the Cowboys rescued him Friday with the 60th pick. The best way to put it about Gregory is that he's a bit of a mess, an amalgam of off-the-field issues, according to various reports including one Friday by ESPN's Ed Werder.

When I asked a general manager what exactly was happening with Gregory, he responded, in a text: "He makes me more nervous than any other player I've scouted." But again, no specifics. There is a reason why Gregory, a top-10 talent, fell like burned-out satellite.

Gregory's troubles, one hopes, are relatively mild. The Cowboys also have Josh Brent who, while driving drunk, killed his own teammate. The Cowboys brought him back because...because...he can play.

So, again, let's recap. The Cowboys have, in Hardy, a woman-beater who makes 9/11 jokes; in Bryant, a guy whose mom, TMZ reported, said threatened to knock her out; a guy, in Brent, who drove drunk and was convicted of manslaughter; and, in Gregory, a draft pick who failed a drug test, skipped meetings with teams, and did everything possible wrong leading up to the draft.

How 'bout them Cowboys! Woooooo!

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What's happening here is simple. It's so simple it's painful. Jerry Jones has decided he's going to win a Super Bowl, and he's going to do it even if he has to sell parts of his soul to do it.

The connecting fiber between most of those players is they are all incredible football talents. Drafting Gregory is part of that. If Gregory wasn't, well, whatever it is he is, he'd be a first-round pick.

Jones is also rolling the dice. It's actually, from strictly a tactical sense, a solid gamble. The Cowboys were a Bryant catch/non-catch away from reaching the title game. Now look at this team. While the Cowboys are the most likely team to star in a prison drama, they are also the best team in football. They are.

The team has added all kinds of athleticism to that defense. The offense is always good. Now that defense is Seattle-like (even with the 10-game Hardy suspension). Off the field, this is a frightening football team. On the field, this is a frightening football team.

Gregory smoking pot isn't a big deal. Failing a test for it at the combine is. It shows a lack of will power. (Scouts have long nicknamed the combine drug test an intelligence test, because players know exactly when they'll take it.)

Then, as Adam Schefter said on ESPN, teams felt that Gregory wasn't honest with them about his use or marijuana. Schefter also said that Gregory missed at least three meetings with teams. There was also Michael Irvin calling out Gregory at a pre-draft gathering between ex-players and rookies, as Gregory related to reporters.

Gregory's pre-draft performance was as bad as any player we've seen in the modern history of the draft. Yet here he is, a Cowboy.

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The one promising part for Gregory is that he was forthcoming in interviews with the media on Friday night in Chicago. He talked about maturing and growing up. Gregory explained he missed one meeting with a team because of a missed flight and canceled the remaining two. Gregory also said he had a 40-minute talk with Jones on his team visit to Dallas.

Gregory was saying all the right things and there's no question the Cowboys, having dealt with players like Pacman Jones and Bryant, know how to put support systems in place.

The Cowboys also got unbelievable value for the pick. I'm just not sure Gregory is the learning type.

Cowboys fans have this strange way of blaming the media when their team is scrutinized. On Twitter, whenever I criticize the team for signing a questionable player, I get **** or racial slurs or **** or momma jokes or **** or **** from Cowboys fans. But I didn't sign a player suspended for 10 games after an investigation showed his attack on a woman left her, as Roger Goodell's suspension letter put it, "severely traumatized and [she] sustained a range of injuries, including bruises and scratches on her neck, shoulders, upper chest, back, arms and feet."

What Dallas has done is take another huge risk in a series of them. It has drafted a guy passed over by most teams, so that it can win games. Taking personnel risks is what many teams do. It is what all teams have done.

Dallas is just doing it better than anyone in football maybe ever has.

If I was Ray Rice, I'd wait by the phone. Call from a Texas area code might be coming in three, two, one...



Mike Freeman covers the NFL for Bleacher Report.



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