Franchise-altering Cowboys blunder resurfaced in Seahawks' Super Bowl domination

Every NFL team can learn a harsh lesson from the Seattle Seahawks' convincing win in Super Bowl 60. The league will leave no stone unturned in its search for the next Mike Macdonald, but Seahawks general manager John Schneider is on an all-time heater in roster building.

Swapping out Geno Smith for Sam Darnold last offseason was a masterstroke, and Schneider has put on a masterclass of drafting in recent years.

What is painful about that for Dallas Cowboys fans is that the Seahawks' 2023 draft class, in particular, stood tallest in the game.

Seattle's No. 5 overall pick that year, Devon Witherspoon, sacked Drake Maye twice and forced the game-ending interception on one of his handful of blitzes. Meanwhile, second-round pick Derick Hall arguably should have won Super Bowl MVP after logging two sacks of his own and forcing a fumble of Maye at the end of the third quarter with Seattle nursing a narrow 12-0 lead.

Care to remember who the Cowboys drafted with their first two picks that year? None other than Mazi Smith and Luke Schoonmaker.

Dallas Cowboys reminded in Super Bowl 60 how much their 2023 draft class set the franchise back

It is impossible to overstate how much the Mazi Smith pick set the Cowboys back. This front office isn't nearly aggressive enough to overcome drafting a bust in Round 1.

Between the 2023 and 2024 offseasons, the defense lost Dorance Armstrong, Dante Fowler, Stephon Gilmore, Johnathan Hankins, and Carlos Watkins. Normally, those wouldn't be debilitating losses, but they are when you whiff as big as you did on Smith and don't add talent in free agency.

The Cowboys have not drafted well enough on that side of the ball to overcome those departures, and Mazi Smith is the poster child for that.

What makes the Smith pick sting so is that Dallas reached on him relative to the consensus board. Hardly any mock drafts had the Michigan product going in the first round.

Some of the players who came off the board after Smith were offensive tackle Anton Harrison, who allowed just one sack on 608 pass-blocking snaps for the Jaguars in 2025, per PFF. George pass rusher Nolan Smith, Penn State cornerback Joey Porter Jr., TCU guard Steve Avila, and the aforementioned Derick Hall were all available.

Smith was one of the worst players in the NFL over his two-plus seasons with the Cowboys, posting a combined 35.4 PFF run-defense grade before Dallas included him as a throw-in in the Quinnen Williams trade.

Drafting Hall, or any of the aforementioned players, over Smith could have been the difference between winning and losing to the 49ers in the 2022-23 Divisional Round and the Packers in the 2023-24 Wild Card Round. That's not an exaggeration.

And taking a blocking tight end (!) in Luke Schoonmaker at No. 58 overall was arguably just as devastating. Schoonmaker is now the team's TE3 after allowing second-year undrafted free agent Brevyn Spann-Ford to leapfrog him in the pecking order.

Florida guard O'Cyrus Torrence, Michigan cornerback DJ Turner, Tennessee pass rusher Byron Young, Syracuse cornerback Garrett Williams, Washington linebacker Daiyan Henley, and Wake Forest defensive lineman Kobie Turner were all there for the taking.

And that doesn't even include the offensive weapons Dallas glossed over. Josh Downs, Tank Dell, Tucker Kraft, and De'Von Achane were all taken after Schoonmaker.

It's no surprise that there's such a big gap between Seattle and the Cowboys. Schneider has put together some elite draft classes over the years -- none better than 2023. Meanwhile, Dallas' 2023 class will go down as one of the worst in franchise history.

Super Bowl 60 was the harshest reminder of that.