Dallas Cowboys Make The Best Move In The First Round

Written by theMBIIIeffect

In the draft there are the picks in the top 10 where you just can’t miss unless you’re pulling names out of a hat, intentionally trying to blow the pick or you’re Al Davis. Those picks net great players, like Ndamukong Suh, Eric Berry and Russell Okung, guys that you can really build a franchise around for years.

That’s the way the draft is supposed to go. The bad teams get great players and the good teams get good players. It’s fair. Unless you’re a Raiders fan and your happiness is directly linked to Davis’ draft dementia.

The Cowboys would have been a better team with those players, no doubt (could you imagine having Berry on our defense? Yeesh). But getting there would have cost us, for sure. We would have had to say goodbye to most of the rest of our draft and maybe some of our draft next year too.

But Jerry Jones managed to get his man without giving up the world. Jones got Dez Bryant, projected as a top-15 talent in this draft.

There were tons of trades in the first round this year. The Broncos seemed like they didn’t want anything to do with the first round, then wound up with two picks. The Lions got back into the first round and there was general tomfoolery with the 24th overall pick, the pick that eventually ended up in Jones’ hands.

To get to 24, the Cowboys had to send out their 27th pick-leapfrogging the Baltimore Ravens who were probably eying Bryant-while swapping our third-round pick (90th overall) for the Patriots’ fourth-round pick (119th overall).

So, Cowboys fans, wrap your head around this: we moved down 29 spots in the middle of the draft so we could pick up the best wide receiver in the draft.

It doesn’t get much better than that.

I thought the Eagles were on the verge of doing something that would have had me cursing when they moved up to the 13th pick in a trade with the Denver Broncos. I thought we were looking at facing Earl Thomas twice a year. Instead, the Eagles took Brandon Graham with that pick. They shipped out their 24th overall pick and two third-round picks to Denver, who then traded the 24th pick to New England who then traded it to us. Where we took the best wide receiver in the draft in Dez Bryant. No big deal.

I thought the Lions moving back into the first round to get Javhid Best was a solid move during the draft. Their skill positions are downright scary right now. And their defense got better tonight. They’re early favorites for the 2016 Super Bowl if they keep making good picks like these (Know what that’s going to be in roman numerals? Super Bowl L. That just looks stupid.). The Chargers made a smart move to get Ryan Mathews, who is a very solid back, but probably gave up too much in the process (Chargers got pick 12, 110 and 173. Dolphins got pick 28, 40, 126 and linebacker Tim Dobbins. That’s a lot to move up that high.)

But Dallas just got scary. We just got “I need new pants” scary. And we’re that scary right now.

The Cowboys do need a few more players. A safety or two for depth (I’m still big on Mike Hamlin) or to start like Nate Allen or Morgan Burnett are options that collegiate teammates Mike Jenkins and Tashard Choice would be thrilled to have in Dallas. Some offensive line depth would be nice too. Maybe Bruce Campbell falls within our striking distance in the second round? Interior line is a need too, as the guys we have on our roster are pretty untested.

Who knows how we’ll do tomorrow and Saturday. But it’s nice to know that given where we started, what we gave up and what we got, we probably made the best move in the draft.

Slap the #88 jersey on him and see what happens.