4 draft mistakes that continue to haunt the Cowboys in 2024

3. Drafting DL Chauncey Golston (3rd round, 2021)

Thank goodness the Micah Parsons pick worked out, because the Cowboys really didn't do well with their next couple of selections in the 2021 NFL Draft.

After whiffing on Kelvin Joseph in the second round, the Cowboys attempted to go after help for Dan Quinn's defensive front in round three. Chauncey Golston was a really good player at Iowa but he didn't test overly well in the pre-draft process (athletically). There were some explosive traits and certainly there was production from the college level, but no one really knew where Golston was going to play at the NFL level.

As it turns out, he's not really playing much of anywhere.

He's played a total of 960 snaps in his first three NFL seasons, including less than 30 percent of the defensive snaps in each of the last two years. He's barely even considered a rotational player at this point with just one year left on his rookie deal.

Players like Nico Collins and Quinn Meinerz were still available at this stage of the 2021 NFL Draft and would have been much better picks for the Cowboys. You can always play the hindsight game when it comes to the NFL Draft, but Dallas often goes after needs in the first handful of rounds as opposed to sticking to the "best player available" strategy consistently. It cost them in 2021.