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2016-2017 Offseason: Pre-Selection Catch Up And Other Considerations
 
April 26, 2017 At 4:46 PM CST
By Eric M. Scharf
 
The 2017 NFL Draft is here at last, and fan excitement is – once again – on full blast!

Many of the NFL’s 32 teams are ready to receive new blood transfusions to help redirect last year’s delusions.

Electric hopes are in the air that enough of the new-and-capable talent “out there” will be amassed to replace one or more remaining roster dopes from years past.

The handful of teams – that reached the 2016-2017 tournament – are looking for that missing piece that might just deliver for their organizations their very first or merely latest Super Bowl ornament.

Each team’s feverish festivity and coverage show intensity is all for naught, however, if a given team’s brain trust is caught ignoring the same, historical draft day common sense most – but not all – are typically taught.

If No Peach, No Reach

If a GM reaches on draft day, he better be a man of conviction or merely stretching his arm, because it takes but one bad selection to trigger the potential for long-term harm.

Cowboys Nation – like any other NFL fan base – has seen (the improved) GM Jerry Jones take risks that left rotten egg all over his face. He has also stood pat with equally poor selections (like Shante Carver) that left draft day shrapnel all over the place. "Shante's Inferno" showed great promise in school but – within four years – made GM Jerry look the fool and forced him to reach for the defensive Drano.

Nonetheless, (almost completely) regardless of the player name, the general formula remains the same.

You start and end with your handy-dandy “draft value chart” (something former Dallas Cowboys head coach Jimmy Johnson fashioned – from a point system concocted by former Cowboys VP Mike McCoy – into a very popular draft day tool and a rather successful annual art).

 
 
While such a chart is held close to the vest of every personnel guru, it is not the only talent evaluation process designed to prevent teams from stepping in draft day doo-doo. Reams of tape, the combine, pro day workouts, background checks, and private player visits give each team plenty about which to yawn, frown, or delightedly scream.

Fans can only hope that – by the end of the (initial) three-day talent procurement exercise – their teams have delivered on their picks and possibly squeezed in an unexpected surprise. Dallas delightedly managed that very scenario with La’el (Collins) when – due to a(n ultimately) false off-the-field allegation – his draft stock aggressively fell.
 
If the desired player is not a peach – and unless there is private eye proof that desired player may, indeed, be more than a roster spot leach, the goal must be NOT to reach.

Will They Or Won’t They?

“America’s Team” – ideally – will get to stand pat, sit on their picks, make shrewd choices, and ignore all the change-of-plan, reach-for-a-risk voices.

The Dallas Cowboys – ideally – will react with each player taken and be able to read the tea leaves when other teams (with potential trades) may be fakin’.

What does "The Tortured Cowboys Fan" – without playing games or unfairly naming names – hope the Cowboys do before they are through?

Round 1 DE – An edge rusher. A real motorized musher.

Round 2 CB – A cornerback ‘tweener capable of zone and man. A wrap-up tackler who can.

Round 3 CB – A capable corner who slips due to a mad rush on another position but who has good skill and intuition.

Round 4 DE – Another player who might slip but on which every team’s radar is a sizable blip.

Round 6 LB – Sean Lee deserves assistance while Jaylon Smith continues to work with resistance.

Round 7 OL – Add another contender to the existing roster competitors for Doug Free’s former spot, and expect the scrutiny to be incredibly hot.

Round 7 RB – Luck into a speedster with good receiving mitts, who can mimic (or improve upon) what Lance Dunbar had only been able to accomplish with inconsistent starts and injury-limited fits.

One way or another, the dominoes will fall where they may. It is up to GM Jerry, son Stephen, Will McClay, and Jason Garrett to make the best possible hay.

And – with a draft THIS deep on defense – Cowboys Nation can excitedly trust the undrafted free agent market to be very robust. There will be an incredibly aggressive post-draft meat market, where much of the forgotten talent and their agents will have to hurriedly figure out their best shot at a roster spot, and with which team they really want to park it.

 
 
Will the Dallas Cowboys make all the right moves and find all the right talent grooves?

We shall see. We always do.