Why the Cowboys first-round draft pick should be an offensive player

The Dallas Cowboys are a fantastic drafting soccer workforce. And in relation to choosing gamers on Day 1, they’re distinctive. By now, you’ve heard all of the hoopla about them knocking picks out of the park within the first spherical. Should you have been to tally up the workforce’s final 13 first-round draft choices, a outstanding 10 of them (77%) have changed into All-Professionals. That’s simply loopy.

This workforce is basically good early within the draft, and should you think about Amari Cooper, whom the workforce gave up their 2019 first-round choose for, the Cowboys have used 11 of their final 14 picks to amass gamers who’ve all earned Professional Bowl honors as a member of the Cowboys.

Right here is the whole checklist…

Nonetheless, should you re-arrange issues a bit and group them by offense versus protection, it turns into a bit of extra apparent that the Cowboys are significantly better at placing gold with offensive gamers than they’re with defensive gamers.

All eight of the offensive gamers on this checklist are Professional Bowlers, whereas solely half of the six defensive gamers have turned out. In all, the offensive gamers have made a complete of 37 Professional Bowls to only 5 Professional Bowls for the defensive gamers.

Now, to be honest, the Cowboys have drafted eight offensive gamers to 6 defensive gamers so the offense has a slight benefit, but it surely’s nonetheless a bit of unusual how they all the time appear to get it proper on offense however are simply 50/50 on protection. And it’s additionally price noting that two of the three defensive gamers they’ve hit on (Byron Jones and Leighton Vander Esch) solely had one Professional Bowl season of their careers. Micah Parsons is the lone defensive famous person and you might even make a case that the Cowboys lucked into that choose after initially having their eyes set on a cornerback within the 2021 NFL Draft.

All of the first-round busts are on the defensive facet as Morris Claiborne and Taco Charlton are picks we’d prefer to overlook, and it’s laborious to not ponder in the event that they made an identical mistake with Mazi Smith, but it surely’s too early to make certain on that narrative simply but. However it’s honest to query if they’re simply not nearly as good at evaluating the top-tier gamers on protection as they’re on offense.

One may also counsel that the Cowboys have spent extra of their premium first-round draft picks on offense and picked extra defensive gamers late within the spherical, however that’s simply not true. The Cowboys have the identical offense/protection distribution (4/3) within the prime 20 as they’ve had after the highest 20 picks.

So, does this imply the Cowboys ought to prioritize offensive gamers over defensive gamers because the title of this text signifies? Effectively, probably not, however type of.

What does that even imply?

It means, at first, the Cowboys ought to keep on with the very best participant accessible method and take probably the most proficient participant on their board. The Cowboys have extra expertise on offense and it will be good so as to add some affect defensive gamers, however want shouldn’t pressure their hand both. If there’s a transparent selection as to who probably the most proficient participant left on their board is, then preserve it easy and run to the rostrum, no matter whether or not they play offense or protection.

Nonetheless, in the event that they discover themselves debating between two gamers of comparable expertise, like say a Mazi Smith and a Matthew Bergeron, then possibly it will behoove them to lean towards the offensive participant. This isn’t saying that we don’t belief the Cowboys participant personnel division to select high quality defensive gamers, however relatively saying we belief them to hit on offensive gamers extra. Their document speaks for itself. Not lacking on a single offensive participant over their final eight tries is spectacular.

The Cowboys are choosing twenty fourth this yr and there’s rather a lot much less stress to hit late within the spherical than if that they had a better draft choose, but it surely’s nonetheless their most treasured draft choice in order that they’ll wish to stick it. It may go in all completely different instructions, but when they really are higher at choosing offensive gamers, why not keep on with what they’re good at?