Cowboys News: Dallas dismissed high-ranking executive, Peter King's power rankings

The Dallas Cowboys made wholesale changes to their coaching staff after their Divisional Round defeat against the San Francisco 49ers.

While some changes were expected? Sure but did anyone foresee senior defensive assistant George Edwards, OL coach Joe Philbin, RBs coach Skip Peete, assistant head coach Rob Davis, defensive line coach Leon Lett and quality control coach/analytics coach Kyle Valero all not having their contracts renewed?

Not a chance, and that list doesn't even include the most notable change: the dismissal of Kellen Moore as offensive coordinator.

It would appear, however, that Dallas wasn't done shaking up its staff. While most of the turnover materialized immediately after the season, ESPN's Seth Walder reported the Cowboys parted ways with longtime director of football research Tom Robinson before the draft.

Robinson had been with the team for over a decade.

Cowboys part ways with director of football research, head of analytics department Tom Robinson.

We're not going to pretend like we have extensive knowledge on Robinson's now-former role with the Cowboys or why his role was discontinued. Robinson had a background in sports science and injury prevention, but specialized in player scouting and preparing analytics reports for opponents.

It's been speculated that Dallas' analytics department has lagged behind the best teams in the league. Perhaps the Cowboys viewed this as an opportune time to make a change behind the scenes? It'll be interesting to see whom the team appoints as Robinson's replacement.

In other Cowboys news, longtime NFL columnist Peter King of NBC Sports released his offseason power rankings. Surprisingly enough, King's rankings didn't paint Dallas in a positive light, as he ranked them 10th overall and in his third tier of squads.

For context, the Eagles sit alone in King's top tier, "Can't find a weakness," while the Chiefs, Bengals, 49ers and Bills fall in the "They've got Super Bowl vibes tier." That brings us to King's third tier -- "They're on the border" -- which includes the Lions (!), Ravens, Dolphins, Jets and Cowboys, respectively.

"Now why this is a crucial year for the Cowboys? They’ve won 24 regular-season games in the last two years, then scored 29 points in eight quarters in two playoff losses to the Niners. Dak’s got to do something about that, now," King wrote.

King is spot-on with his analysis, but it doesn't really explain why the Cowboys barely cracked the top 10 of his rankings. At worse, Dallas should be seventh behind the Jets. The Lions are on the rise, but haven't proven anything, while the Ravens and Dolphins both have to overcome the Chiefs, Bengals, and Bills in the AFC.

If you want to put Baltimore ahead of Dallas, that's fine, but the Dolphins? With the oft-injured Tua Tagoaviloa at quarterback? After they won just nine games last year?

Everyone views the hiererarchy of the NFL differently. Most post-draft power rankings have the Cowboys in the 5-7 range. King clearly isn't as high on Dallas as other writers, and that seems to stem from his lack of trust in Dak Prescott on the big stage.

Time to prove him wrong.