Our Last 7 1st Round Picks

[Risen Star]

For those curious about Risen's draft prowess, here's the thread I mentioned:

http://cowboyszone.com/threads/my-nfc-east-draft-grades.348602/

And Risen's brilliant defense of his "C" grade for the Cowboys: "The grade suffers here because of QB. The Cowboys chose not to go after a legit franchise prospect and instead take a waste of space in round 4. Not only is the pick bad but the time that will be wasted on a player who will never be the pocket passer you need is the worst aspect of it. Do they bypass future QB prospects because they already have their guy? Awful."

You ignored my correct analysis of your worthless draft opinions.

Cowboys have a good draft every year. Except they've been one of the worst at it for the majority of the last 20.

So this is like the 8 hole hitter talking about a strikeout from the guy batting clean up.

 

[Common Sense]

I've never liked the "starter" benchmark for measuring draft success. 22 of your 53 players will be starters by default. You don't "find" them, per se. It's more like a game of musical chairs than a scavenger hunt. Being a starter on the Browns for not the same as being a starter for, say, the Patriots, for instance.

I don't know how you would quantity this, but it would be interesting to assign tiers to the caliber of starter we're talking about, i.e. "In the first round, there's a XX% chance of drafting a player who could start for the Raiders."

 

[dogunwo]

For those curious about Risen's draft prowess, here's the thread I mentioned:

http://cowboyszone.com/threads/my-nfc-east-draft-grades.348602/

And Risen's brilliant defense of his "C" grade for the Cowboys: "The grade suffers here because of QB. The Cowboys chose not to go after a legit franchise prospect and instead take a waste of space in round 4. Not only is the pick bad but the time that will be wasted on a player who will never be the pocket passer you need is the worst aspect of it. Do they bypass future QB prospects because they already have their guy? Awful."

In fairness to Risen, everyone makes bad predictions and judgments from time to time.

 

[Manwiththeplan]

That's an incredible success rate.

The drafting in the 2nd and 3rd rounds have been stellar too.

2010: Sean Lee
2011: Bruce Carter, Demarco Murray
2012: Tyrone Crawford
2013: Gavin Escobar, Terrance Williams, JJ Wilcox
2014: Demarcus Lawrence
2015: Randy Gregory, Chaz Green
2016: Jaylon Smith, Maliek Collins

8 out of the 12 currently start or were starters.

yea, this is not a stellar list. Sean Lee gets crap from some fans, due to his injuries, but that was a stellar pick. Bruce Carter was a bad pick. He only started 32 out of a possible 64 games and was not resigned to a second contract. Murray was another great pick despite what some would try and say. Escobar was a horrible pick. Terrence Williams was an okay pick, and JJ Wilcox was an average pick at best. Odds are neither player will be resigned to a second contract, but at least Williams will get an okay pay day some where. Demarcus Lawrence has 8 career sacks in about 2.5 years, which is not good. I'm fine with that pick, but it's far from stellar. Randy Gregory can not at all be called a good pick. Chaz Green looks to be a good pick, and both 2016 guys really get an "incomplete."

 

[tyke1doe]

Every one of them (except maybe B. Jones) has had at least one All Pro caliber season in their careers (I'm including Mo and Zeke for this year).

I'd argue that Byron Jones is having a Pro-Bowl caliber season. If this defense continues to play the way it is with no pass rush, expect Mo and Jones to be Pro Bowl selections.

 

[dogunwo]

yea, this is not a stellar list. Sean Lee gets crap from some fans, due to his injuries, but that was a stellar pick. Bruce Carter was a bad pick. He only started 32 out of a possible 64 games and was not resigned to a second contract. Murray was another great pick despite what some would try and say. Escobar was a horrible pick. Terrence Williams was an okay pick, and JJ Wilcox was an average pick at best. Odds are neither player will be resigned to a second contract, but at least Williams will get an okay pay day some where. Demarcus Lawrence has 8 career sacks in about 2.5 years, which is not good. I'm fine with that pick, but it's far from stellar. Randy Gregory can not at all be called a good pick. Chaz Green looks to be a good pick, and both 2016 guys really get an "incomplete."

Up to this point, JJ Wilcox has probably earned at least a Lance Dunbar type deal.

 

[dstew60105]

For those curious about Risen's draft prowess, here's the thread I mentioned:

http://cowboyszone.com/threads/my-nfc-east-draft-grades.348602/

And Risen's brilliant defense of his "C" grade for the Cowboys: "The grade suffers here because of QB. The Cowboys chose not to go after a legit franchise prospect and instead take a waste of space in round 4. Not only is the pick bad but the time that will be wasted on a player who will never be the pocket passer you need is the worst aspect of it. Do they bypass future QB prospects because they already have their guy? Awful."

Risen is a legend in his own mind. Not many others.

 

[dstew60105]

You ignored my correct analysis of your worthless draft opinions.

Cowboys have a good draft every year. Except they've been one of the worst at it for the majority of the last 20.

So this is like the 8 hole hitter talking about a strikeout from the guy batting clean up.

How about admitting you were dead wrong on Dak?

 

[Idgit]

I've never liked the "starter" benchmark for measuring draft success. 22 of your 53 players will be starters by default. You don't "find" them, per se. It's more like a game of musical chairs than a scavenger hunt. Being a starter on the Browns for not the same as being a starter for, say, the Patriots, for instance.

I don't know how you would quantity this, but it would be interesting to assign tiers to the caliber of starter we're talking about, i.e. "In the first round, there's a XX% chance of drafting a player who could start for the Raiders."

There's no perfect way to do it, but I think ranking teams by how many picks make the draft team's roaster, how many start, how many make probowls, how many make all pro, and then weighting each tier is a reasonable way to approach the problem. It's not entirely fair, because teams jettison GMs and HCs and change rosters for a variety of reasons (look at the 49ers before and after Harbaugh, for example), but it's a fairly standard way to measure.

By that standard, most of the various attempts I've seen offered put Dallas generally above league average in terms of the quality of players, and about average in terms of the number of picks. Where I think we're above average (and I haven't really seen any league data to support this) is finding quality players in CFA. By that I obviously don't mean number of starters necessarily (since it's a zero sum game between CFA and the draft in that regard), but in finding quality players like Beasley and Romo and Bailey and whatnot. We've been able to find a lot of meat on our scraps.

In any event, if posters are belittling our recent draft history still at this point, it's because they're holding onto an old losing argument. We've slowly and quietly put together a young competitive roster against a tight cap and without the benefit of many extra draft picks to speak of. They've done a nice job.

 

[TheMarathonContinues]

You ignored my correct analysis of your worthless draft opinions.

Cowboys have a good draft every year. Except they've been one of the worst at it for the majority of the last 20.

So this is like the 8 hole hitter talking about a strikeout from the guy batting clean up.

"The Cowboys chose not to go after a legit franchise prospect and instead take a waste of space in round 4. Not only is the pick bad but the time that will be wasted on a player who will never be the pocket passer you need is the worst aspect of it. Do they bypass future QB prospects because they already have their guy? Awful."


Yikes. I remember seeing that at the time and "waste of space" was such a strong choice of words even if all Dak did was become a backup.

Aside from that disaster you would've actually hit this draft 100%.

 

[Zman5]

For some odd reason, we've drafted well on first and third rounds but terrible on 2nd and 4th rounds. Very ODD indeed.

 

[Broges74]

For some odd reason, we've drafted well on first and third rounds but terrible on 2nd and 4th rounds. Very ODD indeed.

I have a feeling 2 and 4 are Jerry's designated picks. lol

 

[Bigdog]

Murray was a 3rd round pick. I am pretty sure Crawford was too.

I thought so too

 

[KJJ]

That's an incredible success rate.

The drafting in the 2nd and 3rd rounds have been stellar too.

2010: Sean Lee
2011: Bruce Carter, Demarco Murray
2012: Tyrone Crawford
2013: Gavin Escobar, Terrance Williams, JJ Wilcox
2014: Demarcus Lawrence
2015: Randy Gregory, Chaz Green
2016: Jaylon Smith, Maliek Collins

8 out of the 12 currently start or were starters.

It hasn't been that good, Bruce Carter flamed out he was a bust! He's currently playing for his 3rd team. Escobar has been a bust! Randy Gregory has been a bust so far and those were all second round picks. The jury is still out on Smith, Collins and Green.

 

[ConceptCoop]

Love the snarky comment, but if you read my post properly you'd see I said the 2nd and 3rd round.

Lee and Murray are among the best at their position.
Lawrence, T-Will, Crawford, and Collins are all solid starters with the potential to be better.
Green and Wilcox look like they're solid rotational players at the very least.
Gregory and Jaylon are TBD.

Carter didn't live up to his draft status due to his inconsistency, but he was an okay starter. Escobar was the only complete whiff.

Hits: Lee, Murray, Lawrence, Crawford, Williams
Misses: Escobar, Wilcox, Carter
TBD: Collins, Green, Gregory, Smith

Here's how I see it, which puts us at a solid 62% hit rate (5/8).

Crawford and Williams aren't sexy, but most 3rd round picks aren't. They've been solid contributors, which is about all you can reasonably ask of a 3rd round pick. Williams had a down year last season, but has actually been a solid #2 outside of that. Don't look now, but he's caught 20 of his 24 targets for 17 first downs. The issue with Crawford is the contract, not the initial investment. Carter could be considered a hit, but he missed so much time. For a pretty high 2nd round pick, I think it's fair to call him a miss.

Of the TBD, I expect 2 of the 4 to be multi-year starters; thus, I expect our rate to hold, for the most part.

Pretty solid.