With glaring needs at starting running back and starting wide receiver, the Dallas Cowboys did what they always do.
They fumbled the draft. For the third straight year.
One night after reaching for Tyler Booker with the 12th overall pick, Jerry Jones decided to double-down.
In the second round, he drafted another edge player.
That made two straight picks at positions the Cowboys had a surplus at. Meanwhile, there are two still-to-be-answered questions for 2025.
Who will be RB1?
Who will be WR2?
When Dallas went on the clock in the third round, surely they would attempt to address one of these two areas, right?
Right?
WRONG!
They decided to address their banged-up secondary instead. They did so by drafting a cornerback who only played in three games in 2024.
Because he missed the rest of the year after tearing an ACL.
Buckle up, folks, because I’m afraid that it’s going to be a very, very long year.
Donovan Ezeiruaku
With the 44th overall pick, the Cowboys apparently decided that having Micah Parsons, Marshawn Kneeland, and Sam Williams at edge just wasn’t going to cut it.
Making the pick even more galling, he wasn’t even the best player at the position that was still on anyone’s board. Which is probably why Jones Inc. picked him.
Again, for the second straight round, Dallas reached for a player after declining to move back in a trade. They probably would still be able to get this player and pick up an extra pick or two.
It was the same blunder they made on Thursday night.
Like Booker, Ezeiruaku is a good player. That isn’t the complaint, unlike the Mazi Smith-Luke Schoonmaker double screw-up two years ago.
The issue here is that both players that they picked would have been there later in the round, but at least the extra draft picks would have helped fill out this roster.
But no. Mr. All-In and Cap Boy Blunder “like their guys” no matter what everyone else with any common sense says.
Shavon Revel Jr.
The Dallas Cowboys have three defensive players that missed games in 2024 due to knee injuries.
Edge player Sam Williams missed the entire year. Linebacker DeMarvion Overshown and cornerback Trevon Diggs missed several games each.
Even DaRon Bland was banged up.
So getting help in the defensive secondary makes sense.
But Shavon Revel Jr. only played in three games for East Carolina last year before blowing out his knee too. He was a solid corner before the injury.
What will the Cowboys see when he gets back on the field?
He had better be the second coming of Deion Sanders, and not Jaylon Smith, is all I’m saying.
Because this pick should have been TCU receiver, Savion Williams.
Millions Left On The Table
Earlier this week, as the draft neared, it became clear that Shedeur Sanders had seriously damaged his reputation among the NFL’s executives.
Just how badly he, and let’s be fair in assigning blame here, and his father self-sabotaged his career surprises even me.
Once considered a Top-3 lock in this draft, Sanders’ free-fall has been almost an epic one. I’d have bought stock in Orville Redenbacher’s if I’d known.
If he’d been taken with the third overall pick, Sanders would be looking at a contract worth around $40 million.
At the earliest, he’ll now be a fourth-round pick and looking at making only $5 million.
That’s for the life of the contract, not per year. That’s a boatload of money he set on fire by refusing to do what almost every other college player has done for decades.
Show up, show your skills, and not throw the kind of attitude during interviews that set off alarm bells in team offices in the NFL.
But he couldn’t do that.
Here’s the nightmare fuel that should plague him tonight. What if he fails to hear his name called at all on Saturday?
He’d be signing as an undrafted free agent, unless he can figure out a way to go back to Colorado. I don’t think that’s possible, but those would be his only options if he isn’t drafted.
I wonder how that crow sandwich with the extra-large-sized side of hubris and a diet chutzpah soda is going down at the Sanders’ house right now.