Dallas Cowboys 2012 NFL Draft Prospect: Dre Kirkpatrick, Alabama
With our 90 year old veteran cornerback, Terrence Newman, retiring this year due to his Scooter claim from ‘The Scooter Store’ finally coming through, the Cowboys have some need in the secondary. Also leaving holes will be the eventual release of Alan Ball due to lack of any football skills whatsoever.
This leaves the Cowboys with three veteran CB’s in Mike Jenkins, Orlando Scandrick, and Frank Walker. Although Walker didn’t have such a great year, I believe the Boys’ will keep him. You can’t expect much from a 4th or 5th string CB, except being a salary-cap friendly player that will make a few plays here or there.
See more on the Boys’ CB situation after the break…
Out of all the Corners on the roster, the one thing that they all lack (besides skill) is size.
In the BCS Championship game where Alabama won a legitimate championship game (not due to a freak injury), we saw the top two CB prospects go at it. Morris Claiborne (LSU) and Dre Kirkpatrick did not disappoint. This was a defensive struggle that left LSU’s offense looking like the St. Louis Rams.
Claiborne is the top prospect and will certainly be the first off the board, but that is in the Cowboys favor. The Cowboys don’t have any way to defend a large receiver. We faced several this year in Plaxico “Hole in my Leg” Burress, Megatron, Hakeem Nicks, Brandon Marshall and many more. And with no large CB’s to defend, we were stuck with having a safety follow over top at all times, allowing other areas of the field open.
Kirkpatrick has a top 10 grade, and I believe that he will be just right out of the draftable range for the Cowboys with the 14th pick. His size at almost 6’3″ 190lbs and 4.4 speed on the 40m will allow him to be one of the largest CB’s in the league right out of college.
As a rookie, it will take him some time to adjust, but with 2 starting quality CB’s on the roster, Kirkpatrick will be able to come in on sub-packages to take the outside receiver while Scandrick moves back into the slot.
His speed was good, although LSU didn’t have any prolific receivers to worry about, and if this were a playoff system we would be seeing a large dose of Kirkpatrick vs Blackmon (of Oklahoma St; considered the top receiver prospect), but Obama hasn’t come through with his promise of a playoff system, so we are out of luck.
This would be a good time to draft several secondary players, because we are finally getting rid of Mr. 5-11, Dave Campo, who led our Cowboys to three consecutive 5-11 seasons before losing his job to Bill Parcells. For some unforeseen and unbelievable reason, Jerry lost a bet with Campo and had to bring him back to spread the disease of mediocrity through our secondary.
With Campo’s release, a new system is going to be coached in the secondary by Jerome Henderson, and wouldn’t the new coach want a shiny new 1st round draft pick to turn into an all-pro corner?
On a side note, Hudson Houck, the Cowboys offensive line coach retired and has been replaced by Bill Callahan. Expect to see a heavy draft centered around the Offensive Line, specifically starting quality on the interior and anyone in the secondary that can cover.
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