I'm pretty sure McClay was only over personnel when we drafted Jones. However, we don't know how much coaches might have even influenced that pick. I'm of the mind that you hire personnel guys to study personnel. You hire coaches to use that personnel. The coaches should have a say in what they are looking for and the personnel guys should find the best fit for it. If it comes down to a difference in opinions, you trust the guys whose job it is to study these players and identify the best one. If they aren't good at the job, then you look for someone who is.
Coaches can be great at their job while still being bad at identifying talents. Personnel guys' job is to be good at identifying talent.
In 2008, McClay was with the Dallas Despardos, which as we all know, is owned by Jerry. If I am not mistaken, and I don't think I am, McClay was helping the Cowboys with Scouting during that period of time. He would join the Cowboys as Player Personnel/Pro Scouting Department the very next year. I am positive that he was involved with evaluations at the time but, lets say he wasn't just for the sake of discussion, he was completely involved with the other two and there is no doubt about that. However, it doesn't change the fact that we've basically blown three top 1st round picks on DBs and that's hard to do, to be honest.
I would also tell you that if its a situation where you have two players that are basically ranked same, same on your evaluation, it absolutely should be the Coaching Staffs call. It should not be the Scouting departments call. I mean, how does that make any sense? You have two guys that are ranked the same and you are going to let your Scouts make the call? Yeah, no. That's not even kinda smart. The talent has already been identified. Once that happens, it's up to the Coaching Staff to evaluate the talent and make the call. That's how it should work, at that point, Scouting should be out of the picture, they've done their jobs.
But, as we all know, it will ultimately be Jerry who makes the pick.