RELEASED Official Cowboy Cuts Discussion Thread

Cowboys22

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Thornhill
  • The Cowboys considered Thornhill as Safety.
  • A 3rd round Safety would also project to be an improvement over Heath at SS.
  • If the NFL had a magic rule that said Thornhill could only play Strong Safety, then he would not have been a 2nd round pick.
  • Heath is not great but was way down the list of reasons the Cowboys lost to the Rams in the playoff game.

Hill vs Thornhill (DL vs Safety)
  • The other issue is that DL has a higher positional value than Safety.
  • At any given pick, the best Safety available is highly likely to be a better prospect as a Safety than the best available DL is as a DL.
  • If a team always picked the best player at his position, then that team would never pick certain positions.
  • For many years the Cowboys had that issue at OLine.
  • Their grades on OLinemen meant that an OLineman was rarely ever going to be available where they had them graded.
  • Their grades on ranking OLinemen relative to each other were fine, but their rankings of OLinemen relative to other positions was the problem.
  • It meant that multiple other teams would have those OLinemen rated higher.
  • Example: If the Cowboys had an OL rated as a 3rd round pick, then most other teams had that player rated as a 2nd round pick.


The year their draft board leaked, i compared every OL on their board to where they were actually picked. The result was on average OL were gone 1.5 rounds earlier than where Dallas had them slotted. I think they realized this and adjusted.
 

xwalker

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CowboysZone ULTIMATE Fan
I appreciate you flexing your knowledge. We all know you know your stuff, but you're reaching in your exposition. You're making connections that aren't there. Mostly, you're overcomplicating the issue with long-winded explanations that seem more like an act of attrition than anything else.

And I genuinely mean that in the nicest way possible.

Thanks I guess.

I had already come this this conclusion before the they picked Hill.

I started out the draft season thinking it was a great year for Safeties in the 2nd round.

After studying all of the Safeties, I concluded that picking a Safety in the 2nd might not be the best option for the Cowboys.

My explanations on all subjects are long and detailed.

People get emotionally attached to a narrative and just won't consider anything that deviates from that narrative. I can only lead a horse to water. I can't make it drink.
 

texbumthelife

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Thanks I guess.

I had already come this this conclusion before the they picked Hill.

I started out the draft season thinking it was a great year for Safeties in the 2nd round.

After studying all of the Safeties, I concluded that picking a Safety in the 2nd might not be the best option for the Cowboys.

My explanations on all subjects are long and detailed.

People get emotionally attached to a narrative and just won't consider anything that deviates from that narrative. I can only lead a horse to water. I can't make it drink.

Well, we're talking about opinions and as strong as you may feel about yours, that doesn't make them right. The problem is there is no way to prove either side is right in this argument without a Flux capacitor equipped DeLorean.

I appreciate the effort you put into your explanations though.

FTR, I wanted Rapp so I don't even have a dog in this fight. I just don't like the Hill pick at all in the second. Even if not picking Hill didn't correlate to in turn picking Thornhill (or Rapp), I don't think it was good value. Then again, the Cowboys have used the second to take big swings on potential, so it's not out of character if they think the upside is there
 

KJJ

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George IIoka was cut yesterday. Go back to when we signed him during the offseason and see how many of the brainiacs here penciled him in as the starter. :laugh:
 

AbeBeta

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George IIoka was cut yesterday. Go back to when we signed him during the offseason and see how many of the brainiacs here penciled him in as the starter. :laugh:

Also back to last year when people moaned about us not signing him
 

KJJ

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Also back to last year when people moaned about us not signing him

I lost track of how many said we finally found us a safety when we signed IIoka. One fan even claimed IIoka is the best player we’ve had at the position since Darren Woodson. :laugh:
 

quickccc

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Only two guys I dont want to see cut assuming Joe Jackson already has team made

Jared jelks
Michael Jackson

Wise, guyton, Weber, Phillip's hopefully to practice squad
 

KingintheNorth

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You’re talking about what teams do but let’s talk about what the Cowboys do. They don’t value that position enough to say they’d draft two guys. And you are wrong on Woods. They love Woods. They look at him as a starter.
They also look at Heath as a starter. They looked at Nick Hayden as a starter. Woods is better than those 2 for sure, but he has yet to show me he's a legit NFL starter.

Them not valuing the safety position is a mistake. Its our Achilles heal and will be exploited in our most important games.

By the way way, the Cowboys drafted two defensive ends this year in the later rounds. Not because they needed two more defensive ends, but because that late in the draft, they were the players the Cowboys felt had the best chance of developing into an NFL player. One of them might even cut today.
 

KingintheNorth

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They should’ve told Rod to go sit in the corner and taken Thornhill for FS and moved X up to SS.

A lot of teams have gone from the traditional strong safety and free safety look to two coverage (aka free) safeties.

Also, this idea that Thornhill can''t play strong safety is silly. He was one of the most physical corners in the ACC two years ago. He's player like Byron Jones and Damarious Randall. One Front Office sees them as a corner, another sees them as a safety. In Byron's case, the same Front Office saw him as both.

Byron Jones
UConn
2011 - Safety
2012 - Safety
2013 - Cornerback
2014 - Cornerback
Cowboys (1st round pick)
2015 - Cornerback
2016 - Free Safety
2017 - Free Safety
2018 - All Pro Cornerback

Damarious Randall
2012 - All-American cornerback playing for us at Mesa Community College
Arizona State
2013 - Strong Safety
2014 - Strong Safety *All-Pac12
Packers (1st round pick)
2015 - Cornerback
2016 - Cornerback
2017 - Cornerback
Browns (trade)
2018 - Free Safety

Juan Thornhill
Virginia
2015 - Cornerback
2016 - Cornerback
2017 - Cornerback
2018 - Free Safety
Chiefs (2nd round pick)
*The Chiefs play a two (traditional) free safety look

Also, my all-time favorite player is Darren Woodson. A college linebacker, he was the prototype Strong Safety in the NFL. Then, when Roy Williams arrived years later, he moved to Free. These aren't boxed-in positions, they are interchangeable.
 

KJJ

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Didnt get how people were projecting him to start. Some even putting him near the top of all safties here since Woodie...lol.

Offseason optimism, I guess.

A lot of the projecting was a combination of some being so desperate for the team to finally find a solid safety and stupidity. Fans tend to get carried away. It’s par for the course here.
 
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