I’ll be honest with you. As soon as the Dallas Cowboys pick of another offensive lineman was announced, I almost called it a night.
Shoot, for a fleeting moment, I was about to call it a season.
And there’s still six more rounds of this draft to play out.
Is Tyler Booker a bad player? No. He’s certainly not a threat to be the kind of bust Mazi Smith was two years ago.
But an offensive lineman was not the Cowboys’ biggest area of need on Thursday night.
Dallas needed, and now still needs, playmakers on offense. Players who have the ball in their hand with the intent of finding the endzone.
They didn’t get that with the Booker selection.
Over the last three drafts, the Cowboys have taken defensive tackle, offensive tackle, and now, offensive guard.
Do you recall the old rental car commercial with legendary NHL goalie Patrick Roy? He fielded a junior hockey team with nothing by goalies.
Lately, it seems like the Cowboys’ front office is determined to field a team with 11 linemen on both sides of the ball.
It won’t work. And that’s why I was so frustrated last night.
I suspect that many of you were too.
No Playmakers Left
With running back Ashton Jeanty off the board at six to the Raiders, and receiver Tetairoa McMillan going two picks later to the Panthers, Dallas couldn’t afford to gamble.
But they did anyway.
After the Cowboys, these players, difference-makers all, were taken in the first round.
Receiver Emeka Egbuka went to Tampa Bay at 19. Running back Omarion Hampton went to the Chargers at 22.
With the very next pick, Texas receiver Matthew Golden was off to Green Bay.
There will be 11 picks made before the Cowboys make their next pick.
If, by some miracle, receiver Luther Burden III is still available when they go on the clock, he must be the pick if they are to salvage this draft.
Because there are no other game-changing running backs or receivers left in this draft. There are some good players at the position, yes.
But no running back able to carry a team on his back. Certainly no receiver capable of commanding the attention needed to pull double-teams off of CeeDee Lamb.
That was the Cowboys’ assignment on Thursday night.
They failed, miserably. Yet again.
Stop The Insanity
The definition of insanity, as the saying goes, is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.
If that doesn’t perfectly describe the Dallas Cowboys of the 21st Century, I don’t know what does.
After blundering their way through the first two rounds of the 2023 and 2024 NFL drafts, one had hoped that they would go a different path in 2025. They didn’t on Thursday night.
They aren’t giving me any reason to believe they’ll get it right early Friday evening either.
Dallas’ latest misstep is made worse by the strong night the other NFC East teams enjoyed.
The Giants landed edge player Abdul Carter. They then traded back into the first round to land their quarterback of the future in Jaxson Dart.
The Commanders shored up their offensive line. They could afford to do that because they have playmakers in their backfield.
The Eagles landed a solid linebacker to help them try to defend their title.
All three teams identified their greatest area of need and filled it.
The Cowboys didn’t even come close.
The Biggest Loser
There was one player that saved the Cowboys from being the biggest loser of the first round.
Dallas can thank Shedeur Sanders for saving them from that dubious distinction.
Sanders’ attitude and approach to this off-season’s lead-up to the draft turned off many league executives. So much so that he plummeted from a Top 5 pick all the way out of the first round.
The Browns have the first pick of tonight’s second round. The expectation is that they will likely take him with the 33rd overall pick.
But they might go for Alabama’s Jalen Milroe instead.
If that happens, Sanders could fall all the way to 40th and the New Orleans Saints.
If the Saints pass on him? He could be looking at the third round.
Or worse.