Why Dallas Cowboys VP of Player Personnel Will McClay is a true leader

It takes a complete team to win football games. The Dallas Cowboys have a front office team that finds really good football players.

The Dallas Cowboys Vice President of Player Personnel Will McClay deserves the praise being showered on him by Stephen Jones for the Cowboys’ draft results. It is McClay’s job to research the draft prospects and find the right ones to help the Cowboys win on the field in the fall.

The Cowboys used a best player available strategy and let the draft come to them for the most part. Dallas did get a little itchy towards the end of the fourth round trading a 2021 fifth-round pick to move up and draft center Tyler Biadasz.

By all accounts, Dallas hit a home run with their 2020 draft. The immediate draft grades are mostly A’s with a few scattered B+ giving Cowboys Nation the fuel to light playoff and NFC  Championship Game fires.

While nailing the draft is a key success criterion to win on the field, it might be a little early to anoint the Cowboys draft picks. The Cowboys will need to develop the players they have drafted and hope that the draft hype translates to the field.

But that challenge lies with the head coach, Mike McCarthy, and his staff. Will McClay and his staff did their job and it would seem that they did it very well.

I am a movie buff. With three children growing up over the past seventeen years, I have watched my fair share of Pixar movies. Bug’s Life is one of my favorites as I have never forgotten the first rule of leadership – it’s always the leader’s fault when something goes wrong.

With this as the first rule, the second rule of leadership is it is never the leaders doing when something goes right. Great leaders never take credit and always deflect the praise to their team when something goes well.

This is why the Cowboys are very lucky to have McClay in their front office. Not only has he checked his ego at the door by not seeking the general manager title and turning down offers to lead other teams, but he is also a selfless leader who recognizes the work of his team. Here is what McClay told DallasCowboys.com when hearing the praise dropped at his feet:

"“The MVP of the draft was the scouts, to me. We rely on the scouts. That’s how we build the [draft] board.”"

Coach McCarthy told McClay that his priority was to find good football players first and the coaches will find ways within the scheme to use the talent. Thankfully, the Cowboys Front Office found effective ways to work together leading up to the draft and it would seem that Dallas found some good football players.

While it will be a while before we see the Cowboys on a football field, Cowboys Nation is anxious to see this draft class energize the team. Could the energy be enough to return the team to the playoffs – we’ll have to wait first and watch the story unfold in the Fall.