COWBOYS - Quick Review of the Draft and Giants/Eagles bashing

Posted by Taz:

So by now, you have read the whinefest below by Chris and Alli about how the Cowboys draft sucked. If these were Redskin fans, who had a great draft, then I could understand. But these are the Eagles and Giants talking. Their drafts were nothing special. They seem to ignore that numerous experts seem to think our draft was pretty good. John Clayton says we were a Day 1 winner, and the Giants were a Day 1 loser because they are too stupid to realize that the Saints aren’t going to trade too much for the overemotional bitchfest known as Jeremy Shockey. Tony Pauline of SI says that Mike Jenkins was a steal while he calls the Eagle’s 3rd round pick for the positionless Brian Smith a reach. Charles Robinson at Yahoo! gave us higher grades than both their teams (including comparing this year’s Eagles draft to their worthless 2006 draft class). Clifton Brown of the Sporting News also graded us higher than the Giants and Eagles. Mel Kiper gave us the highest grades in the division. What does he know? He only spends 364 days a year evaluating talent. And look at this…Eagles writer Paul Domowitch gave us higher grades than the Giants (he has to give a decent grade to the Eagles otherwise the citizens of Philadelphia will probably hunt him down and throw cheesesteaks at him).

I don’t know about you, but that is positive notes from ESPN, the Sporting News, Yahoo!, and Sports Illustrated. Apparently, Alli and Chris are so homerish, they have to bash my team because they can't really be happy about their crappy drafts.

Let me tell you what I think about their drafts (I’ll discuss the Redskins in a separate Redskins only post)

Eagles – Apparently someone forgot to tell Andy Reid that size might matter in the NFL. Their first three picks were all undersized at their position, including Desean Jackson, this year’s winner of the Reggie Bush “I look fast because I can outrun college players” bust award. They also spent a pick on a CB who will not play next season because he is injured and has a couple of legal issues. Moreover, they have Lito Sheppard still dangling out there as trade bait. They seem to be offering him to everyone for legit players, and everyone keeps turning them down. Does this say something? Alli thinks he is a great trade asset, but who wants to send a #1 receiver for a chronically injured player who is angling for a contract extension? My main question is outside of Desean, who is a starter coming out of this draft? I will give them props for fleecing Carolina. Next year’s draft may look better, and this year’s may develop down the road. But right now, it doesn’t seem like a great draft.

Giants – Their draft was well, blah. They filled some needs in the first two rounds, and added depth on defense. Plus they gambled on Manningham. Their draft wasn’t bad, but it wasn’t anything to write home about. The bigger issue is that they failed to get rid of Shockey. As much of a pain in the ass he is in general, you think he is going to be happy that he wasn’t traded? He’s probably heard enough about how addition by his subtraction from the team helped Eli become a non-s***ty QB. So he is probably pissed and will cause an even bigger headache.

Ok, enough bashing of those two teams. Let me discuss Dallas now.

1) I think people are annoyed about the Felix Jones trade because we did not take the better player overall. But I think that misses the bigger point. We made this pick because of the ability for Felix to bring a skill set badly needed to the team. Has anyone seen our return unit lately? Exactly. Our special teams suck, and we need some help. Jones should contribute there immediately. What about providing a compliment to Barber’s punishing running style? Jones can do that as well. You can line up Jones in the slot…that adds versatility as well. What I am saying is this: who cares if the other guy rushes for more yards. I want players who will add another dimension to this team. Felix Jones will do that to this team; Mendenhall will be good, but will only help out on 10-15 plays when Barber is on the bench. Jones will make more of an impact for this team, both in what he can do when he is on the field, and with playing time. Moreover, I think the Tashard Chance pick gives us a great backup if Barber gets injured or Drew Rosenhaus convinces his client that the best way to get money is to throw a fit and not show up to camp.

2) I like that we drafted two corners. I love the Jenkins pick, and I heard the other corner we got was supposed to be a late 2nd rounder that we found in the 5th. I feel much better about corner this year than last. Hopefully it allows us to fix some of our glaring secondary problems.

3) The only pick I didn’t really like was the DE/OLB in the 6th round, but it is the 6th, so what can you do?

4) I like the Bennett TE pick because it is like the Jones pick – he gives us flexibility to do different things. He can block, line up as a receiver, or play TE. So we can put so many more formations and movement on the field. I like this draft because it gave us that in Jones and Bennett.

Overall, I think this draft went very well for Dallas. While we did not fill every need, we did fill several and ended up with an extra 3rd and 4th for next year.