Cowboys fans appear to have decoded Jerry Jones’ leaked big board

We already know that Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones doesn’t like to be wrong. He refuses to admit it when the front office makes a not-so-wise decision and he will spin things until the cows come home to explain himself out of any situation. That gets the Cowboys’ GM in some sticky situations.

In case you missed it, in a post-first-round press conference on Thursday evening, Jones literally revealed a sheet of paper that detailed the Cowboys’ private big board information. You’d think a long-standing NFL GM would know better than to reveal such information. So, why did he do it? Because he didn’t want to be wrong. When reporters questioned the front office’s decision to draft Tyler Smith with the 24th overall pick, Jones pulled out the paper to prove that the Cowboys had Smith ranked above names like Kenyon Green and Zion Johnson.

He literally asked reporters if they could see the sheet of paper while holding it up. Some laughed, and eventually, his son told him to put the sheet away. Jerry must have forgotten how incredibly advanced technology is these days, and unsurprisingly, his odd decision backfired. In the last several days, Cowboys fans and reporters have been using footage from the press conference to dry and decode what the piece of paper said.

A Cowboys fan on Twitter revealed a zoomed-in image of the sheet of paper Jerry held up next to an excel sheet detailing who he thought the names were. I’m not sure how long this took, but the dedication deserves an A+. Some names seem 100% accurate, such as Kayvon Thibodeaux, Aidan Hutchinson, and Evan Neal. The others seem like pretty fair guesses at the absolute worst. The internet is such a wild place.

Cowboys fans and reporters have decoded the 2022 NFL Draft big board sheet that Jerry Jones revealed in a press conference

This unsolved mystery went beyond Cowboys fans though. Beat reporters like The Athletic’s Jon Machota even did full articles trying to decipher what was on this exclusive sheet of paper.

To be fair to the Joneses, they weren’t lying in their pre-draft press conference. The image reveals that there truly were only 14-16 players they deemed worthy of a first-round pick. Shockingly, Green and Johnson were not on that list and Smith was the 16th name.

Another odd thing to point out about this list is that only one prospect in their top 10 was part of their 30 official visits list. That prospect was Drake London. Players one through nine did not get official visits to The Star. Typically, the Cowboys tend to select first-rounders from that list.

Perhaps what makes this whole thing even worse is that the Cowboys’ NFC East rival New York Giants got the top two names on the sheet. Both Evan Neal and Thibodeaux will be facing off against Dallas next year. Not ideal.

We’d like to think that this will teach Jones a lesson, but at this rate, the man is unhinged. Whether a decision makes sense or not, the GM will do anything to make himself sound correct.