Cowboys LB Leighton Vander Esch Has Severe Neck Injury; Out for the Year

[DaBoys]

4 hours ago, Nextyearfordaboyz said:

They had Mazi and Bergeron at 12 & 13, not sure which order. There were some reports that we only had 11 1st round grades. There were beat writers at the end of day 1 that said we still had a first round grade on the board. It’s hard to know exactly, the reports are contradictory. Regardless, Mazi clearly was essentially at the top of the board.

For sure we aren’t the Ravens. We know they had Lewis Cine above Tyler Smith, for example. They’ll let need and positional value be a tiebreaker+. But they don’t let blinking lights pass them by very often, even when there appears to be good players at bigger needs (see: CeeDee, McGovern, Overshown).

Kelvin Joseph and Luke Schoonmaker seem to be the most likely examples in recent years where they really got dead set on picking a position and reached-but we don’t know that 100%.

In the case of KJ….would Asante Samuel be the BPA at the position? I think the consensus at that time was AS was the best CB available, certainly on this board, but in expert boards as well. Same with Taco and TJ. It’s clear they didn’t think Watts body type could handle being a hand in the dirt DE in the same way Tacos could. It’s clear they didn’t like AS jr. being short. But there’s no way they thought these guys were better football players, right? The Cowboys wanted a run stuffing DT but wasn’t Bryan Bresee the better DT prospect?  Obviously Watt and Samuel were better prospects and they turned out to be better pros. Imagine looking at Brandon Cooks and Martavious Bryant. You see that Cooks is clearly the better WR but pick Bryant because he’s 6’4”. The Cowboys seem to do that sometimes. But overall I agree we follow a board and draft very well most of the time. 2023 is a blemish. 

Edited November 18, 2023 by DaBoys

[Nextyearfordaboyz]

1 hour ago, DaBoys said:

In the case of KJ….would Asante Samuel be the BPA at the position? I think the consensus at that time was AS was the best CB available, certainly on this board, but in expert boards as well. Same with Taco and TJ. It’s clear they didn’t think Watts body type could handle being a hand in the dirt DE in the same way Tacos could. It’s clear they didn’t like AS jr. being short. But there’s no way they thought these guys were better football players, right? The Cowboys wanted a run stuffing DT but wasn’t Bryan Bresee the better DT prospect?  Obviously Watt and Samuel were better prospects and they turned out to be better pros. Imagine looking at Brandon Cooks and Martavious Bryant. You see that Cooks is clearly the better WR but pick Bryant because he’s 6’4”. The Cowboys seem to do that sometimes. But overall I agree we follow a board and draft very well most of the time. 2023 is a blemish. 

Yeah, I mean, when I say BPA, I mean that they should follow their board for BPA. We don’t really know how they ranked Taco and KJ, but those do seem like cases where coaching preference superseded the scouting department. 🤷🏻‍♂️

They certainly aren’t perfect. The main point of this is to say that, if an LB presents himself as a real BPA at some point in the draft, I do generally trust us to take him.