COWBOYS - Thoughts on Day 1

Posted by Taz

So day one of the draft has come and gone, and I just spend the last 6 hours watching the NFL Draft. While this year's draft is much shorter than last year's, it still feels like ages between Cowboy picks. So here are my thoughts.

Pick #22 - Felix Jones

About 90% of mock drafts in the last month seemed to have us picking him. So either all these people had enough smarts to figure it out, or it was one of the worst kept secrets in the draft. Apparently, even though it was absolutly no suprise, I still found it amusing that he fell into our laps. That either means 1) that it was so obvious that people did not believe it would actually happen, or 2) no one tried to get him early because no one wanted him that high. Hopefully, it is the former (and I wouldn't be suprised with all the overthinking that happens before the draft).

At first I was annoyed about this pick because I really wanted Rashard Mendenhall. But then I realized that this fits better for us. It gives us a change of pace back and a person who can do returns. So I'm decently pleased with this pick, despite my earlier whining.

Pick #25 - Mike Jenkins

When I realized he was available (around pick 20, when I realized that everyone and their mother was going to ignore every other position so they could reach for offensive linemen), I got really excited. More corners mean we can move Anthony Henry to saftey and Roy Williams to the bench. But then after 22, I was worried that he wasn't going to make it. Lucky for us, we were able to trade up for the 25 pick by giving Seattle the rights to two guys they probably will cut in training camp.

This guy was projected to go really high, so the fact that we were able to get him at 25 was exciting. He was the corner I wanted (at least until I found out that Rogers-Cromartie was missing a kidney), so the fact that we pulled this off was great.

Round 2 - Martellus Bennett

If you read my previous posts, you know my view on the Fasano pick from 2006. I remember screaming at the television, then calling my friends and bitching about it for days. Then a couple of writers started mentioning that the Cowboys would start using two tight end sets as the base set, which would make the second tight end a necessity, and not a wasted pick. So I conned myself into thinking this whole scheme would work decently. I didn't need it to be the greatest NFL innovation ever, but just enough to be worth the second round pick. I think last week's trade of Fasano tells you how sucessful this pick was.

So as you can guess, I went off the deep end when they announced this pick. Chris and Alli pointed and laughed and me for this pick. I would have pointed and laughed at myself if I wasn't a Cowboys fan. I thought the team was just trying to screw with us Cowboy fans.

After a cooling off period and a bit of internet research, I feel a bit better about this pick. First, it looks like Mr. Bennett is a bit more versatile than Fasano. While he is not the most athletic person ever (though he did play college basketball for two years), he looks to be a decently good pass catcher. Plus he can be lined up all over the place, and not just off the line. So this pick may not suck, but ask me later, after I see this guy play.

What I would like to see tommorrow:

1) More trading down by the Eagles - it makes Alli go nuts
2) Draft another CB. I just want to make sure we can at defend in our dime scheme without having to rely on either Mr. Strip Club or the 90 pound Alan Ball being our 4th corner.
3) Draft a QB in the lower rounds - we definetly need to start developing a decent backup to Romo.
4) No more tight ends! One is enough for one draft, especially when we only have 3 picks left.
5) I would like Early Doucet if we take a WR, but I dont see him falling to us.