News: BTB: 2017 NFL Draft: Cowboys Undrafted Free Agent Signings Tracker With Live Updates

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As the draft winds down, the next stage of talent acquisition gets into high gear, as teams start to chase down the remaining players they had draftable grades on.

The Cowboys had nine undrafted free agents on their roster starting at least one game in 2016: Ronald Leary, Barry Church, Benson Mayowa, Cole Beasley, La'el Collins, David Irving, Lucky Whitehead, Keith Smith, and Emmett Cleary all went undrafted and took a sometimes circuitous route to the NFL. Add veterans Tony Romo, Cedric Thornton, Jeff Heath, and Lance Dunbar, along with special teamers Dan Bailey, Chris Jones, and L.P. Ladouceur, and you begin to understand the importance undrafted free agents (UDFAs) have for the Cowboys, who have been quite successful in bringing in UDFAs over the years.

And one of the reasons for the Cowboys' success with UDFAs is that Chris Hall, director of college scouting for the Cowboys and the guy with the long hair on the bottom right of the war room camera over the last three days, doesn’t allow scouts to "come off grade". If they have a grade on a guy before the draft, they have to stick with it after the draft. Which means that after the draft, they try and sign every guy still left on their draft board, as they feel those players effectively amount to extra draft picks.

And that's why we also make a point of tracking these UDFA signings. Full disclaimer here before you go any further: tracking and confirming actual signings of undrafted free agents can be tricky. The sources of these transactions come from all over, Twitter included, and sometimes they are not 100% reliable. Also, all reported deals are agreements, and players could back out of deals over next few days. Although this would be unusual for Cowboys agreements, it happens across the league every year, as the Cowboys found out the hard way two years ago when they thought they had an agreement with RB Thomas Rawls, who ended up with the Seahawks.

On of the reasons these signings happen so fast is that a lot of teams already have deals wored out in advance with prospective UDFAs, as Tony Pauline of DraftAnalyst explains.

Have you ever wondered how teams sign so many UDFAs almost the minute the draft has ended?

It's simple -- the deals were worked out earlier this week and many of them are done.

I spoke with more than a dozen agents through Wednesday of last week, and most told me they had deals in the works for players they represent that may end up undrafted.

In some instances agents use the leverage of the deals in hand to get even more for their players. In other instances they use the deals to get the player drafted, telling the team on the other side of the phone, "If you want him you’re going to have to draft him."
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So, with that in mind, below is a list of players who have been reported to have signed with your Dallas Cowboys as undrafted free agents, or who have received an invitation for a tryout at the Cowboys' rookie minicamp scheduled for May 12-13.

Refresh often, as we will be updating this thread as news comes out.​

Rank​

Player​

POS​

School​

Height​

Weight
411​

Lucas Wachs

OLB​

Wyoming

6-1
225
508​

Jahad Thomas

RB​

Temple

5-10
190
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Mini-camp invite
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'Rank' is per the CBSSports big board​

Here are the names as they are coming in:

6:50 PM ET: Lucas Wacha, OLB for the Wyoming Cowboys signs with the Dallas Cowboys. Wacha is a Texarkana, TX native.

7:03 PM ET: Cowoys fill a need at RB with Jahad Thomas. Thomas had a private workout with the Cowboys prior to the draft.

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