ESPN ranks the Cowboys as team with best young core under 25 in NFL

The NFL is full of superstars of all ages. Tom Brady is seemingly doing the impossible 45 years old, and other veterans like Aaron Donald, Aaron Rodgers, Myles Garrett, and Von Miller continue to impress. The Dallas Cowboys do have some standout veterans on their team including names like Zack Martin, Tyron Smith, and DeMarcus Lawrence. However, the Cowboys also have an incredible list of young players on their roster, too.

Talent is talent, but it’s exciting that some of the best players on the team are still in their early 20s. ESPN recently released an article ranking all 32 teams based on their players under the age of 25. Here’s how the rankings worked:

• Number of starts made by players under 25
• Number of snaps by players under 25
• Quality of play relative to age
• Importance of position group
• Expected starters in 2022 under 25

Out of all 32 teams, the Cowboys were the top ranked team for their talent under the age of 25, which should give fans a ton of hope for the future. The noteworthy part is that in 2020, the team ranked 24th in the league and in 2021 they ranked 20th in this same category. That is a huge jump in just two years.

It’s fair to assume that Will McClay has truly done his job well and proven that his draft picks are the right choices.

The Dallas Cowboys are the top ranked team in terms of players under 25 years old, per ESPN

Despite the fact that players like Tony Pollard, Terence Steele, and Neville Gallimore just “graduated” from the group players under 25, the current list was impressive enough to still earn a top rating.

Those players include Micah Parsons, Trevon Diggs, CeeDee Lamb, Tyler Smith, Jalen Tolbert, and Osa Odighizuwa. Each one of those players was chosen with the help of McClay, and the history shows that the Cowboys have a great track record when it comes to their top picks in the draft. Here’s more from ESPN:

"The Cowboys have just one losing season in Prescott’s tenure. They rarely pick at the top of the draft. Still, it’s difficult to imagine a team having a better run of early draft success than the Cowboys did in 2020 and 2021. Lamb was the surest bet and is a feather in the cap of an approach to draft talent over team need. After near-exclusive usage in the slot as a rookie, Lamb saw 47% of his targets out wide in 2021 and still broke an absurd 22 tackles and produced 5.6 average yards after the catch. With Amari Cooper now in Cleveland, Lamb should push for the receiving yardage crown this season.But the Cowboys owe their biggest transformation to 2020 second-rounder Diggs and 2021 first-rounder Parsons. Diggs can sometimes be burned when he tries for a big play and misreads a route and had just modest 2021 rates of 11.1 yards per target and a 51.8% coverage success rate because of it. But the tradeoff makes up for those misreads and then some.If they continue their recent success with those selections, then the Cowboys will counterbalance their expensive veterans and keep their Super Bowl window open for the next three years or more."

The reality is that every person on this roster needs to be great for the Cowboys to get back to a Super Bowl. Cowboys fans aren’t wanting to wait any longer for another Lombardi Trophy, but knowing that some of the best players have many years left in the tank is certainly promising.

Parsons, Lamb, and Diggs will continue to keep this team in contention for many years to come.