Dallas Cowboys have an advantage heading into the draft

The Dallas Cowboys are gearing up for NFL Draft season as we speak. While the pandemic has shaken all draft proceedings up, Dallas should have a leg up.

The Dallas Cowboys, like every other team in the National Football League, are gearing up for the NFL draft. This is usually the time of year where people are pumping out mock drafts left and right, workouts both private and of the group variety are all around, and the infamous pro day schedule is the daily calendar.

Well, in the wake of the recent world pandemic, things haven’t quite shaken out the way they normally would have around this time of year. Things are so much different at this particular time and moment in history, that the 2020 NFL Draft will unprecedentedly be held in a virtual fashion. 

While the whole notion of a virtual draft has drawn ire from some, those at the top of the league are firing back. Among those is NFL vice president of football operations, Troy Vincent.

In a piece written by Jason La Canfora for cbssports.com, Vincent told Canfora on his radio show that this whole virtual process will show us who the “true talent evaluators are“. That is exactly what we were thinking. With that, here is why the Dallas Cowboys should have a leg up throughout this process and in this particular NFL draft.

To piggyback off of Vincent’s comment and to get right to it, the Cowboys have an advantage because they have true talent evaluators and have clearly empowered them more in recent years. We buried the lead here because the true power isn’t in the answer itself, but in the supporting facts.

In taking a look at the last five year’s worth of drafts, the Cowboys have had a ton more hits than misses. We would also like to add in a qualifier here of only considering a few of the middle rounds here, as that’s where the true talent evaluator shines.

The first round is pretty much laid out and a giant case of taking the best potential player for your team, based on where talent level, best available, and team need meet. The later rounds, much of the fifth and beyond is based on taking a chance on a guy that may probably have gone earlier if not for specific issues, a guy who still needs a year of development, or a guy with little exposure.

The Picks

With that said, when looking at the second through fourth-round picks of the Dallas Cowboys for the last five years, this is what you come up with:

2019

Second– Trysten Hill

Third– Conner McGovern

Fourth– Tony Pollard

2018

Second– Connor Williams

Third– Michael Gallup

Fourth– Dorance Armstrong

Fourth– Dalton Schultz

2017

Second– Chidobe Awuzie

Third– Jourdan Lewis

Fourth– Ryan Switzer

2016

Second– Jaylon Smith

Third– Maliek Collins

Fourth– Charles Tapper

Fourth– Dak Prescott

2015

Second– Randy Gregory

Third– Chaz Green

Fourth– Damien Wilson

The Analysis

If you take a look at the picks as a whole, 14 of the 17 selections can be considered hits. With the average NFL career being less than three and a half years, any player that didn’t or hasn’t flamed out yet can be considered a win. Only Tapper and two of the picks not named Tony Pollard from this past season are picks that can either be labeled misses or unknown up until this point.

While you have only a few misses, when you look at the for sure hits from this crop of names, that all but seals the deal. Pollard, Gallup, Awuzie, Lewis, Jaylon Smith, Collins, Prescott, Gregory when on the field, and Wilson are definitely all guys that should play in this league for quite a few more years at a very high level.

What does this all mean though? This means that the Dallas Cowboys have the right people in place that can make the hard picks count when things are right.

If they can do this with such a high degree of success in normal conditions, they should still be able to do it with a relative level of success compared to the rest of the bunch in, shall we say, less than normal conditions.

This is especially true when considering the fact that most teams don’t have anywhere near the sense of stability and structure that Dallas have had the pleasure of having for a long time. These are the main reasons why the Dallas Cowboys have a huge advantage heading into the 2020 NFL Draft season.