Thanks for this detailed anallysis. Seems there is a lot of management by committee going on. The Hill and Taco picks included. Seems he is not the one calling the shots.
It is a difficult trade-off of scouting dept. vs coaches. McClay's predecessor failed because he ignored coaches input.
Coaches are stubborn and giving them players they didn't want usually fails. On the flip side they are conditioned to make quick decisions on player evaluations vs scouts that are conditioned to observe players over years instead of months or weeks.
Coaches make 90+ percent of roster decisions in 6 weeks of camp. Scouts have often followed players since they were college freshmen or even in High School.
Like most things in life neither extreme works. There has to be an optimum balance point between scouts and coaches input. I don't know if that balance point is 80/20 scouts/coaches or 60/40 or something else. It's dependent on the specific scouts/coaches. If the Head Coach is Jimmy Johnson fresh out of college coaching and a master talent evaluator then that dominates the process; however if the HC is Jason Garrett then all coaching input is questionable.
It seems that Stephen Jones and McClay gave too much respect to Marinelli. Now Jon Gruden is doing the same and even surpassing the respect/input that the Cowboys gave Marinelli. It might work with a Head Coach that is in complete control and has legit football credibility but with Garrett as HC there was nobody to step in when Marinelli couldn't coach Taco. Jimmy would have either caused Taco to quit in his 1st training camp or Taco would have become a solid NFL player. Taco has DLaw type physical ability but the mental makeup of a 13 year old rich girl.
The jury is still out on the Hill pick. If Hill had been a ready-now type prospect he would have been a first round pick with his physical abilities. He practiced all off-season at 3tech and that's where he played in the preseason. Then when the put him in real games they played him primarily at 1tech. That's a ticket to failure even for the most ready-now rookies but a guaranteed fail for a player that was known by everyone to need a year to develop.
Hill is big 6-3, 308 in the draft and reportedly over 320 at times in college. He is strong (played 3-4 NT his first 2 season in college) and he has very quick feet.
Despite reports he was not a bad character player in college. Coaches from both of his college coaching staffs have been very complimentary of him. The 2nd staff's DC seemed enamored with him in an post draft interview but apparently it was the Head Coach that refused to start him due to the fact that Hill had expressed anger when they would not let him transfer with the original coaching staff. The DC said that Hill was very "high motor" player. Despite not starting in the 2018 AAC Championship game against Memphis (Tony Pollard's team), the results were dramatically different when Hill was in the game vs when he was off the field. When Hill played it was usually for a complete series. Hill and UCF won 56-41. Of the the 41 points by Memphis,
only 10 were scored on drives with Hill on the field and that TD came after UCF's offense turned the ball over just outside the redzone. Memphis ran wide to the opposite side of Hill on that TD.
Despite that performance, in the Fiesta Bowl vs LSU 1 month later, they barely played Hill. That Head Coach had Hill in the doghouse to the point that is reminds me of when Al Davis basically benched Marcus Allen because Allen had irritated him regarding contract issues. Davis could have traded him but preferred to "teach him a lesson" by minimizing his playing time that season.
I find it very difficult to criticize McClay for the Hill pick even if Hill fails. Everything about the pick pointed to a possible high reward at a moderate risk.
The Taco pick on the other hand should be criticized. It was known that Taco had motivation issues in college and his physical ability was not the type that makes it worth taking the change. It's McClay's job to emphasize the mental-makeup issues; although maybe he did and was over-ruled. McClay leaves mental-makeup, medical, etc. out of his draft board rankings but he has presentations to highlight those issue on draft day.
Randy Gregory was worth the risk, IMO. Everything about him was terrific except his weed/depression issue. He was otherwise a high character player and far more intelligent than the average NFL player (Highest SAT of any player drafted in the Jerry era). Gregory had that rare "Right DE" ability but he was also top 2 in that draft as a run defender of the quality outside pass rushers. He displayed an uncanny ability to use leverage against OTs that out-weighed him by almost 100 pounds. Without the weed issue he would have been a top 10 pick and probably top 5. His "on field" mental makeup was better than guys like Clowney. On a side note, after the last suspension and subsequent return, Marinelli said that Gregory showed up to camp in the best physical condition of anybody on the team.
The Jaylon pick was all about the Doctor's opinion. Jaylon's surgeon is on a consulting contract as one of the Cowboys team Doctor's. Without the injury he would have been a top 10 pick. He could do it all in college from tradition LB duties to playing DE to literally playing as a CB against slot WRs. They were going to take a DE with that pick but the 2 they had targeted were drafted at the 2 picks before theirs. They likely would have traded down if Jaylon was the top target but it was reason risks to think 1 of 2 DEs would be available considering that there were only 2 picks ahead of theirs that day to start the 2nd round.
Summary:
They could draft "safe" picks in the 2nd round. Most years you could pick an OG in the 2nd round and it would be a safe bet that the player will develop into at least a passable NFL starter. The problem is that a team might get the playoffs with a team full of "safe" picks but Super Bowl winners generally have some amount of uber elite talent on their roster.
If you "hit" a 2nd round pick that becomes and uber elite player, you can take the money saved by having that player for 4 years vs signing an uber elite free agent and go sign a half-dozen "safe" OGs.
The best thing so far about the new coaching staff is that they're not planning to radically change the defense in terms of players required (i.e. They're not inheriting an elite 4-3 OLB like DWare and switching to a 4-3.). McCarthy has repeated that they'll be a 4 man front as their base and that they will adapt their scheme to fit good players.
On a side note, Gerald McCoy should be a great example of how to play as a traditional 3tech to Trysten Hill.
