Cowboys Pre-Free Agency Draft Needs

Let’s take a look at our draft needs as they stand right now before free agency starts on February 27. The two clear cut needs as of right now are going to be DE and ILB; however, like all years past, a fan’s view of team needs is usually not in-line with what the team will actually do. In recent drafts, how many times can you remember not getting the guy you wanted, and how many times were you surprised by early picks like Fasano and Bennett. This trend is likely to happen again this year. But for now, in my opinion the first picks should address the following:

2nd round #51 DE: Canty will be gone, and with virtually no one of equal or great caliber, this hole should be addressed first
3rd round #69 ILB: We still have Carpenter a former 1st rounder to compete for the vacated ILB spot, but we’ll definitely need a solid ILB drafted here

4th round #97 OG: This pick should start the process of adding depth and competition for the LG spot. Kosier is playing on limited time, and just average and fully upgradeable at this point

4th round #113 OLB: Adding another OLB somewhere in this draft will happen, its just a matter of what round. Spencer is still a question mark, in yr 3 he better show something or we’ll be looking at that selection as a miss. Greg Ellis will not be here much longer, so addressing OLB will happen.
After the 4th round we’re basically drafting for depth purposes, and gem finding. Hopefully we can hit on someone, we need all the young gems we can get.

As an interesting barometer of our picks, I found this 7 round mock draft by Drafttek, and here’s what they have the Cowboys drafting through 7 rounds:

2nd round #51 FS Louis Delmas, Western Michigan
3rd round #69 OG Kraig Urbik, Wisconsin (from Cleveland)
4th round #97 OLB Cody Brown, Connecticut (from Detroit)
4th round #113 ILB Scott McKillop, Pittsburgh
5th round #148 OT Sebastian Vollmer, Houston
5th round #158 WR Kenny McKinley, South Carolina (from Tennessee)
6th round #184 CB Joe Burnerr, Central Florida
7th round #193 NT Darryl Richard, Georgia Tech (from Detroit)
7th round #210 FB Travis McCall, Alabama

This is actually is nice mock draft and I could see our draft going down this way. Safety is a concern, but as it stands right now, Roy Williams is still on the team, and if he remains on the team, Dallas probably won’t draft a safety early even though “we” think it should happen, the team always goes another direction every time. In this draft, they give us a OG in the 3rd round, another good possibility that again, would address the concerns surrounding Kyle Kosier. In the 4th they give us OLB, and ILB, those could be switched, but they both address obvious depth needs early on. Again, from the 5th round and up we’re looking at depth players. In this draft we get an OT, WR, CB, NT, and FB.  I would say all make sense at this point. We’ll see how this shapes up.

Once the NFL combine wraps up and free agency begins, I’ll revist our draft needs accordingly. Let the fun begin!