Confessions of an NFL draft addict and revisiting the Dallas Cowboys 2010 draft

Confession time: I am an NFL draft addict.

I’m not sure how this obsession came to be. It started slowly, with Paul Zimmerman’s annual draft previews in Sports Illustrated, then graduating to Mel Kiper’s mail-order draft guides before the World Wide Web turned this craving into a 24-hour, 365-day free-for-all.

I really can’t get enough. While critics initially panned the NFL Network for broadcasting the draft combine from Indianapolis, I watched breathlessly as future stars competed in 40-times, lifts, shuttle runs, vertical jumps. I took notes. PVRd what I missed.

Underwear Olympics? These were final exams for those graduating to the NFL and for many players, it was their initial national exposure. I was riveted. I still am.

Add the intrigue of the NFL player selection process – the clashing of egos between owners, general managers, coaches, prospective players and their families – the checkered draft history of some franchises or their GMs, the millions of dollars and jobs at stake, and I can’t get past this event being the greatest reality show on TV.

Watching Donovan McNabb getting booed onstage by stunned face-painted Philly fans wearing Ricky Williams Eagles jerseys, watching the Gallery Gods mock the Jets annual selections, Jeff Lageman and Kyle Brady come to mind, or watching prospects in the Green Room waiting and waiting to get drafted, Aaron Rodgers, Geno Smith.

It’s no wonder Hollywood finally found a way to turn it into a movie. Draft Day with Kevin Costner. Getcha popcorn ready indeed.

The draft became a statutory holiday in my household, Mel Kiper Day. Then the NFL turned into a three-day festival and thus it is now dubbed (Mike) Mayockpalooza.

The Good Wife knows I am emotionally unstable during this time period, prone to bursts of incoherent shouting, laughter and … rage. Controlled. Most of the time. 

Better to be left alone. It’s like watching a game on Sunday, only with much, much more at stake.

Teams that win the draft end up in bed with the Lombardi trophy. Those precious picks make or break the fortunes of a franchise. Teams can add complimentary free agent players or even trade for a superstar to get over the proverbial hump, but title seeds are sowed in spring.

Which is why as a Cowboys fan, the past few years have been particularly painful.

Without having direct access to the draft room – I object to it being called a War Room, it’s not even a close metaphor – it’s difficult to explain why Jerry Jones and company have fared so poorly without the guiding hands of Bill Parcells and Jimmy Johnson.

There are so many variables involved in any draft choice that unless you’re there, in the room, and witness to trade offers, rumours and the team’s reams of evaluations, it’s hard to pinpoint where Dallas consistently goes wrong.

Is it scouting? Is it assessment? Is it Jones? He is the easy target and the team’s draft record shows there has to be a communication breakdown within the franchise but you wonder how much bad luck has played a factor in the team’s woes.

Thanks to Jones’ marketing wizardry, there have been two “leaks” of the Cowboys’ draft strategy, in 2010 and 2013. Images of Jones standing in front of the team’s big board allowed sharp-eyed draftniks to make out the team’s “cheat sheet.”

In 2010, the Cowboys’ first-round grades were as follows:

1. Sam Bradford
2. Gerald McCoy
3. Ndamukong Suh
4. Russell Okung
5. Trent Williams
6. Eric Berry
7. Rolando McClain
8. Joe Haden
9. CJ Spiller
10. Mike Iupati
11.  Blocked by Jerry’s arm, but likely Earl Thomas or Dez Bryant
12.  Blocked by Jerry’s arm, but likely Earl Thomas or Dez Bryant
13. Bryan Bulaga
14. Sean Lee
15. Jared Odrick
16. Jason Pierre-Paul
17. Derrick Morgan
18. Kyle Wilson
19. Maurkice Pouncey
20. Navarro Bowman
21. Jahvid Best
22. Tyson Alualu
23. Jermaine Gresham

The list was surprising because it was unsurprising. Most mocks heading into the draft had similar first-round values save for three players: Lee, Bowman and Alualu.

Alualu drew gasps when he was taken by the Jaguars with the 10^th pick overall and time has shown that the gasps were an appropriate reaction.

The Cowboys got a falling Dez Bryant with their first pick and then made a prescient choice by taking Lee with their second rounder, the 55^th pick.

If Lee was unavailable, would they have still traded up from the 59th pick? Or do they take Bowman and still have an extra fourth in their pocket? Given Lee’s injury history and Bowman’s prodigious production with the 49ers, Cowboys fans would have been even more overjoyed.

This was easily the best draft the Cowboys had since Parcells left but you wonder what would’ve happened had both Lee and Bowman been selected before their pick. Would Alualu be our defensive end?

These variables show some of the factors at play with each selection. The Cowboys could have hit gold – Bowman, silver – Lee or copper – Alualu, depending on the other teams’ needs and assessments.

Is it all luck?

The Cowboys traded up to get Lee in what would turn out to be a very deep draft, with few busts. Their next pick was Akwasi Owusu-Ansah, in the fourth round.

To draftniks, it was a slight overvaluation, like Lee and Bowman, and this time, the Cowboys turned out to be dead wrong. They had a fourth-round grade on Owusu-Ansah, just a few notches above Kam Chancellor, who was the next defensive back taken.

Owusu-Ansah was waived by the Saints, didn’t play last season and is now on the Lions’ practice squad. Chancellor is coming off a Super Bowl win and has a Pro Bowl on his resume.

What if another team had taken Owusu-Ansah? What if a Cowboys scout had seen more from Chancellor and bumped his grade up a notch?

What ifs play a great factor at the draft so when you see the myriad of players that the Cowboys could’ve selected with each draft, consider the hindsight factor.

Where were these lists after the selections were made. Do they have the stones, like a young Kiper did, to say picking players like Trev Alberts is why the Colts “draft second every year.”

Or is it really a mug’s game?

Cowboys vs. Steelers -- Why Pittsburgh is moving ahead, again

I used to hate the Pittsburgh Steelers. Just plain despised them.

Franco. Woose. Bradshaw. Dumb. Swann. Pretty boy. Lambert. Dirty. On and on it went. I had grudging admiration for Mean Joe but that was about it.

The Dallas Cowboys and the Steelers fought for the decade of the ’70s. For NFL fans who lived through the era, even if you didn't cheer for those teams, you chose sides and there was no in between.

In my mind, the Steelers were the brawn, the Cowboys the brains. Men in Black vs. Men in White. Terrible Towels vs. America’s Team. 

Bradshaw vs. Staubach? No contest. Give me Captain Comeback any day of the week. Steel Curtain vs. Doomsday D?  Come on.

But I’ll be damned to explain why those black-clad so-and-sos always got the bounces. The Immaculate Reception and the immaculate drop by Jackie Smith. Before The Catch was made by Dwight Clark, Swann had a few of its predecessors in Super Bowl X.

Both teams then struggled through the ’80s before Emmitt, Troy and Michael restored the shine on the star in the ’90s. They even beat the Steelers in their third and last Super Bowl. Ben Roethlisberger pulled out a couple of Super Bowls for Pittsburgh in the last decade.

Now, both teams are in the midst of similar restructuring. I still can’t believe the Steelers finished with the same 8-8 record as the Cowboys last season. Pittsburgh started 0-4 and looked every bit like one of the worst teams in the NFL. They couldn’t run, they couldn’t pass. They couldn’t stop anybody.

Yet somehow, along the way, they found their stride. They found what was working for them and stuck with it, then everything else began to come together, and they finished the season on a three-game win streak.

The Steelers have long embodied their city, its industry and its inhabitants. They’re blue collar, play tough, and put forth an honest day’s work. Their coaches have always demanded it and so do their fans.

It was a concept that was beyond my grasp when I was growing up. 

Economically, the underdogs were really the Steelers, not the Cowboys. And they had a Hall of Fame array of talent that performed its best when it mattered. I saw that when Dallas had its run in the ’90s. The only team that could stop it was itself. And it did.

This week, both historic franchises found themselves together again, at the bottom of the league in salary cap commitments, each having overburdened themselves by some $15 million.

In true Jerry Jones fashion, the Cowboys bought their way out and pushed the pain forward another year. No need to make hard decisions when you can just ask players if they want their annual salary up front. Tough negotiations? Here Tony, Do you want half your money now and the other half next season? Guaranteed?

Can you imagine Steelers GM Kevin Colbert going up to owner Art Rooney and asking for $20 million to pay players right now because he messed up? And that yeah, we may have to go through this again next offseason.

Yet that’s what Jerry Jones the GM and Jerry Jones the owner decided by reworking the contracts of Romo, Sean Lee and Orlando Scandrick and turning their salaries into signing bonuses. All three deals were less than a year old.

Now for this season, Romo’s cap hit is down to $11.7 million from some $21.7 million. Great, you say?

Guess what it’ll be in 2015? Try $27.7 million. 

And who will need new contracts that season? Dez Bryant and Tyron Smith. Right. Good luck with that.

Having not extended themselves like the Cowboys, the Steelers simply lengthened the contracts of two valuable veterans, Troy Polamalu and Heath Miller, for a reasonable two extra years and made tough decisions by cutting veteran Larry Foote, 2011 third-round draft pick Curtis Brown and tackle Levi Brown, who they traded for during the season.

Tough choices made by a very good management team. They could’ve turned to Ben Roethlisberger and asked if he wanted half his salary in a signing bonus. But the Steelers aren’t into robbing Peter to pay Paul. And forestalling the inevitable. They assess, they move on. It’s how they can right their ship in mid-season while the Cowboys are still hoping for a wind to lift their slackened sails.

 Man, how I miss the days when I used to hate the Steelers.

Disheveled in Dallas: The clear and present danger that is Jerry Jones

By a Cowboys fan from T.O., not that T.O. But I'm going to work with T.O. and only T.O.

At the epicentre of the Dallas Cowboys’ success and struggles stands owner and general manager Jerry Jones, the man who controls all aspects of the franchise, on and off the field.

Jones’ biggest strength is his unsinkable spirit. He’s eternally optimistic and armed with a fortune-hunter's will to move mountains.

It’s how he churned through the oil and gas industry to generate enough of a fortune to purchase America’s Team just as it fell on tough times.

It’s how he can put the lavish finishing touches on a $1.2-billion stadium that was supposed to cost $650 million amidst one of the worst financial crisis the U.S. has seen.

But it’s also why despite 25 years of struggling on the football side of operations, he’s not going to abdicate. Not now, and not soon.

With the passing of Al Davis, Jones is the one NFL owner who is the face of his franchise. For better and for worse.

Better because he’s a tremendously competitive man who’s willing to put any and all resources into winning a championship. He is passionate and totally invested.

It’s also why he’s not doing the franchise any favours by continuing to be the club’s Jack of all Trades. From public relations to concessions to stadium improvements to dealing with unsigned free agents, Jones has final say and is the club`s public visage

Simply put, he has too many jobs to properly accomplish the most important one for the long-term health of the franchise, the evaluation and acquisition of football talent.

 

Cowboys fans don’t need to see shots of Jerry in his owner’s box, on the sideline, in the dressing room multiple times every Sunday. They want to hear unconfirmed reports that he was in Tuscaloosa or Eugene or Ann Arbor the day before. Or that he’s in Mobile for the Senior Bowl or Orlando for the East-West Shrine game in the offseason.

Of course Cowboys scouts attend these football hotbeds but there is no substitute for seeing players with your own eyes, for talking to coaches or sources and cultivating a relationship. To better read the nuances when they say a player is a playah.

Further, he is too infatuated with players he selects or trades for, which is why he’s so generous with contracts. In a non-salary cap world, he’d be the second coming of Eddie DeBartolo Jr. But today, his club stands some $15 million over the cap and needs to release the club’s best defender, DeMarcus Ware, among others, just to get within sniffing range of the club’s annual ritual of extending player contracts.

Cowboys fans, who have seen the club’s talent level ebb like this before, in the late ’90s following the departure of Jimmy Johnson, can only hope that Jones will once again seek another respected football mind for assistance, like he did when he hired Bill Parcells.

Otherwise there’s no easy way out of this Dallas Buyers Club.

There is talent on the team. Dez Bryant, Tyron Smith and Sean Lee play premium positions and would start on any other NFL club. There's just not enough to go around. Outside of Tony Romo, Jason Witten, Brandon Carr, Orlando Scandrick, Travis Frederick and Terrence Williams, the rest of the roster is nondescript.

The success of the club hinges entirely on the health of its quarterback, who will 34-years-old and coming off back surgery when September rolls around. After eight seasons of dodging defenders, and multiple injuries to his ribs, Romo is not quite as elusive as once was and for whatever reason, whether injury or misreads by receivers, wasn't as accurate last season.

The team ranked fifth in scoring last season but that stat was misleading. In terms of yardage, the offence was middling, 16th in the league. It was opportunistic. And we don't need to delve into the league's worst defence in yards (7th worst in points allowed.) 

Three straight 8-8 seasons.

The man responsible for the present, Jones, remains responsible for its future. Jones has previously said that as an owner, he would have fired himself as general manager long ago. 

If only he would listen to his old self.

To be continued

Disheveled in Dallas: Drafting mediocrity

By a Dallas Cowboys fan from T.O., not that T.O. But that is my quarterback

No executive has ever batted 1.000 at the NFL Draft. Not even St. Jimmy.

And yes, hindsight is 20/20.

Give Dallas Cowboys owner/GM Jerry Jones some credit. The Generalissimo has fared rather well in early rounds recently, scooping up blue chippers Dez Bryant, Sean Lee and Tyron Smith. Last season’s daily double of Travis Frederick and Terrance Williams also looks promising.

But…

Those are the picks you’re supposed to hit on. They’re batting practice fastballs. Whiff on them and you’re the Raiders.

A Super Bowl contender hits on picks early in the draft consistently and gets “lucky” with some late rounders.

The Super Bowl may be won in February but it is most often lost in May, at the NFL Draft. Teams that draft the best are the ones jumping on the podium with confetti raining on their heads.

In 2010, one team drafts safety Akwasi Owusu-Ansah in the fourth round. The next defensive back off the board is Kam Chancellor.

A year later, one team drafts DB Josh Thomas in the fifth round. Eleven picks later, that same other team takes Richard Sherman.

The Seahawks net two Pro Bowlers, including the self-proclaimed best cornerback in the game, while the Cowboys get 10 games out of Owusu-Ansah.

What are the chances the Seahawks hit the jackpot on both picks and the Cowboys crap out?

Drafting is not an exact science but it’s not a game of chance either.

The Cowboys’ draft history under Jones, without the assistance of Jimmy Johnson and Bill Parcells, is underwhelming, and astonishingly poor in the later rounds.    

In the past five years, Dallas has chosen 27 players in rounds 4 through 7. There’s not a pick that comes within sniffing distance of what the Seahawks unearthed in 2010 alone.

The best of the lot may be linebacker Victor Butler or on special teams, kicker David Buehler.

In 2010, Seattle came away with K.J. Wright (4^th), Sherman, Byron Maxwell (6^th) and Malcolm Smith (7^th). Four Super Bowl starters, including the MVP. Seattle’s other recent drafts produced similar quality.

Not only have the Cowboys failed miserably to find diamonds in the rough, most of their later picks are no longer with the team or the NFL, leaving the franchise with little or no depth. It’s why an unsigned free agent like George Selvie can come in off the street during training camp and start 16 games at defensive end.

The Seattle comparison is one-sided but useful because that’s your competition in the NFC. That’s the top dog you have to punch in the mouth. Do the Cowboys have the guns to do it?

The answer is no.

Given the team’s draft record, there’s not much hope that franchise players are suddenly going to start popping out like popcorn. And there are no extra picks to increase those chances.

Moreover, the team’s core of Pro Bowl players is getting older and the team is in salary purgatory, so not only are free agent fixes unavailable, the Cowboys have to shed a portion of their mediocre amount of talent to meet the league’s cap.

To be continued.