2010 was the beginning of the marked-difference when it came to how the Cowboys approached the draft. The 2009 draft was a disaster that apparent by the end of that season. Both top picks were "pet cats" of the coaching staff. The picks of Bryant and Lee were clearly the case of the Cowboys following their draft board.
While I can't verify it, I think it's apparent that something changed between the 2009 draft and that of 2010.
I disagree completely with the last line.
2009 was an awful draft all the way around the league. The draft was very thin in talent - a fact that was discussed in detail by many of the draftniks. The Cowboys strategy failure went FAR beyond selecting pet cats - rather than package picks to move up and get guys who would help immediately, they traded down and acquired extra picks in a draft lacking depth in talent. That's an idiotic strategy in a draft that called for quality over volume, especially when the team is saying that their starters are set.
2010 was a better result, aided in part by better talent being available throughout the draft. The reason why I don't think that there was a paradigm shift was for the following two reasons:
1. The 2012 draft, where they traded up for Claiborne when they hadn't done a serious work up on him, was a poor class for the Cowboys.
2. The 2013 draft, where the scouts and coaching staff were not on the same page in terms of positional prototypes and preferences, was set up to be a disaster, but was saved by the Jones' insisting on a trade down, and then selecting Frederick when many believed it was an early pick. Even the Jones' fed into this by admitting that they picked him because the top interior linemen were picked clean at that time.
I think the real changes began last year.
