Cowboys bucked a decade-long trend with Cobie Durant signing

The Dallas Cowboys did something very unusual this weekend. They signed a player that doesn’t meet their athletic and physical thresholds. While that isn’t uncommon in the NFL, the Cowboys have been very strict when it comes to what type of players they are bringing in.

Will McClay became the Vice President of Player Personnel for the Dallas Cowboys in 2017, and since then, he’s been the driving force behind many of their free-agent moves, trades, and draft picks. Jerry Jones and Stephen Jones ultimately have the final say, but it’s McClay who has done the heavy lifting when it comes to personnel decisions.

But the signing of Cobie Durant signals that they could be moving in a different direction as a franchise.

Cobie Durant signing is an outlier for the Dallas Cowboys

During Will McClay's tenure, he has preferred cornerbacks who are taller and have longer arms. In fact, the average arm length of the 26 cornerbacks they’ve acquired in unrestricted free agency, trades, or in the draft was 32.16 inches. Just to put that into perspective, the average arm length for an NFL cornerback since 1999 is 31.4 inches.

They also prefer taller cornerbacks, with 24 of their 26 cornerback acquisitions measuring at least 6’0 tall. Seven came in over 6’2, which is nearly three inches taller than the average NFL cornerback. McClay has always preferred taller and longer defenders, which is why the signing of Durant is so fascinating.

Durant’s official combine measurement was 5095, which means 5’9 and 5/8”. He is the only sub-5’10 cornerback that the Cowboys have acquired in the last 10 offseasons.

And at 180 pounds (combine weight), he’s also the lightest cornerback Dallas has ever acquired. His arm length of 30 ¾” is well below-average, and he’s one of only two cornerbacks that the Cowboys have acquired with sub-31” arms since 2017.

What is so unique about Durant is that, despite his size limitations, he has primarily been an outside cornerback in the NFL. And the expectation is that it will be the case in Dallas. He’ll be the smallest outside cornerback we have seen with the Cowboys in over a decade, and it’s fair to wonder if McClay has changed some of his physical thresholds because of Christian Parker’s defense.

If that’s the case, that could open Dallas up to more cornerback options in Round 1. Both Mansoor Delane and Avieon Terrell fall well short of the typical thresholds that the Cowboys desire for their cornerbacks. But they are both undersized stars who do their best work on the outside.

And now that Durant is on the roster, they certainly have a better chance of being drafted to the Cowboys than in any other previous iteration of this team.

Time will tell how the Cowboys attack the cornerback position and whether their size requirements start to fade. But the simple fact that they signed Durant opens them up to far more opportunities in this draft and beyond.