If the Dallas Cowboys had listened to ESPN’s Mel Kiper Jr. and Todd McShay, here’s what their draft haul might’ve looked like over the past eight years...
Earlier this month, ESPN’s Mel Kiper published his first mock draft of the year to much fanfare and much ridicule. Kiper and his ESPN colleague Todd McShay are two of the biggest names in the mock draft business and have been dominating the mock draft headlines for years, so today we ask ourselves what would have happened if the Cowboys had followed the pair’s mock draft suggestions in each of the last eight drafts - knowing that the Cowboys already did a pretty good job on their own.
In the mock draft world, there’s only one mock that ultimately counts: the final mock draft published before the actual draft. That doesn’t stop mock drafters from inundating us with countless mocks before that final one, but none of those carry any real weight. Which is why today we’ll look at Kiper’s and McShay’s final mock drafts from 2011-2018. Before we go there though, here is a summary of the last eight Dallas Cowboys first-round picks, along with some metrics we’ll use to evaluate the picks.
| Year | Player | All Pro |
Pro Bowls |
Starter Seasons |
Games Started |
Car. Approx. Value |
| 2011 | Tyron Smith | 4 | 6 | 8 | 118 | 71 |
| 2012 | Morris Claiborne | -- | -- | 4 | 73 | 24 |
| 2013 | Travis Frederick | 3 | 4 | 5 | 80 | 47 |
| 2014 | Zack Martin | 5 | 5 | 5 | 78 | 54 |
| 2015 | Byron Jones | 1 | 1 | 3 | 59 | 26 |
| 2016 | Ezekiel Elliott | 2 | 2 | 3 | 40 | 37 |
| 2017 | Taco Charlton | -- | -- | -- | 7 | 6 |
| 2018 | Leighton Vander Esch | 1 | 1 | 1 | 11 | 11 |
| Total | 16 | 19 | 29 | 466 | 276 | |
Overall, that’s a pretty impressive haul. 19 Pro Bowl seasons, 29 out of a maximum of 36 starter seasons, 466 starts and a very strong Career Approximate Value (CarAV) of 276.
Over the last eight years, the Cowboys have had a lot of success with their first-round picks picks (as measured by CarAV), despite whiffing on Morris Claiborne and despite Taco Charlton failing to live up to his draft pedigree so far. Overall, the Cowboys rank fourth in the NFL with their 276 CarAV points behind the Rams, Panthers, and Saints over that period. Here are the total CarAV points for all first-round picks of the last eight years by team:
| First-round AV points by team, 2011-2018 | |||||||||||||
| Rank | Team | Picks | CarAV | Rank | Team | Picks | CarAV | Rank | Team | Picks | CarAV | ||
| 1 | LAR | 8 | 328 | 12 | TAM | 8 | 197 | 23 | BUF | 8 | 173 | ||
| 2 | CAR | 8 | 303 | 13 | DET | 8 | 196 | 24 | NYG | 8 | 163 | ||
| 3 | NOR | 10 | 292 | 14 | TEN | 9 | 195 | T25 | WAS | 6 | 149 | ||
| 4 | DAL | 8 | 276 | 14 | CIN | 9 | 183 | T25 | CHI | 8 | 149 | ||
| 5 | HOU | 7 | 271 | T16 | IND | 7 | 181 | 27 | BAL | 8 | 147 | ||
| 6 | MIN | 11 | 270 | T16 | KAN | 6 | 181 | 28 | JAX | 8 | 145 | ||
| 7 | NYJ | 9 | 226 | 18 | MIA | 8 | 179 | 29 | SFO | 10 | 135 | ||
| 8 | ATL | 7 | 213 | T19 | PHI | 7 | 178 | 30 | OAK | 6 | 128 | ||
| 9 | PIT | 8 | 206 | T19 | ARI | 8 | 178 | 31 | GNB | 7 | 102 | ||
| 10 | NWE | 7 | 205 | 20 | CLE | 14 | 175 | 32 | SEA | 4 | 99 | ||
| 11 | LAC | 8 | 203 | 22 | DEN | 7 | 173 | ||||||
Note that the CarAV numbers in this table are allocated to the team drafting a given player, and not to the team the player eventually moved on to. Amari Cooper for example earned six AV points in Dallas last year but his total CarAV of 31 (including his points in Dallas) are included in Oakland’s tally in the table above.
Overall, the table establishes that the Cowboys have gotten more from their first-round picks over the last eight years than most other teams. With that, let’s turn to Kiper and McShay to see how their picks for the Cowboys hold up in this comparison.
| Mel Kiper |
Here are the players Mel Kiper had the Cowboys picking in his final mock drafts of each of the last eight years:
| Year | Player | POS | All Pro |
Pro Bowls |
Starter Seasons |
Games Started |
CarAV |
| 2011 | Cameron Jordan | DE | 2 | 4 | 8 | 127 | 68 |
| 2012 | Quinton Coples | DE | -- | -- | 2 | 32 | 19 |
| 2013 | Sylvester Williams | DT | -- | -- | 4 | 63 | 29 |
| 2014 | Ryan Shazier | LB | 0 | 2 | 3 | 41 | 27 |
| 2015 | Preston Smith | DE | 0 | 0 | 3 | 50 | 24 |
| 2016 | Ezekiel Elliott | RB | 2 | 2 | 3 | 40 | 37 |
| 2017 | Marlon Humphrey | CB | -- | -- | 1 | 13 | 7 |
| 2018 | Courtland Sutton | WR | -- | -- | 1 | 9 | 5 |
| Total | 4 | 8 | 25 | 375 | 216 | ||
Kiper’s picks would have been a good draft haul for the Cowboys, but not a great one. For the most part, Kiper would have had the Cowboys drafting solid starters, but the players he picked lack the postseason accolades the Cowboys picks garnered. Kiper’s 216 CarAV points would rank this collection of eighth best in the league.
That’s not bad, and it’s certainly better than what the much ballyhooed GMs of the Eagles and Giants put together, as well as the less extravagantly lauded Redskins front office. So there’s that.
| Todd McShay |
On to McShay’s final mock picks for the Cowboys:
| Year | Player | POS | All Pro |
Pro Bowls |
Starter Seasons |
Games Started |
CarAV |
| 2011 | J.J. Watt | DE | 5 | 5 | 6 | 104 | 96 |
| 2012 | Michael Brockers | DT | -- | -- | 7 | 105 | 43 |
| 2013 | Sheldon Richardson | DT | -- | 1 | 6 | 87 | 49 |
| 2014 | Johnny Manziel | QB | -- | -- | -- | 8 | 5 |
| 2015 | Shane Ray | DE | -- | -- | 1 | 15 | 12 |
| 2016 | Ezekiel Elliott | RB | 2 | 2 | 3 | 40 | 37 |
| 2017 | Tre'Davious White | CB | -- | -- | 2 | 32 | 12 |
| 2018 | D.J. Moore | WR | -- | -- | 1 | 10 | 8 |
| Total | 7 | 8 | 26 | 401 | 262 | ||
McShay gives the Cowboys a run for their money, coming in just 14 CarAV points short of the Cowboys’ total. His picks get a strong boost from the J.J. Watt pick, but would have been a very impressive haul regardless. And if McShay hadn’t fallen for the Manziel hype in 2014, he might have beaten the Cowboys. The Cowboys - or at least Jerry Jones - came close to picking Manziel themselves, but more rational minds prevailed.
McShay’s collection of picks for the Cowboys over the last eight years would have ranked seventh overall in terms of CarAV points.
The Cowboys did well in the last eight drafts, and they would still be among the Top 10 teams if they had listened to Kiper or McShay in those drafts; they certainly would have done better with Kiper or McShay than they would have with the majority of NFL GMs out there.
Here, for your pre-draft delectation, are the best and worst first-round picks from each of the last seven drafts and what their AV would add up to:
| Best picks | Worst picks | |||||||||
| Year | Team | Player | POS | AV Points | Year | Team | Player | POS | AV Points | |
| 2011 | CAR | Cam Newton | QB | 104 | 2011 | GB | Derek Sherrod | T | 3 | |
| 2012 | CAR | Luke Kuechly | LB | 84 | 2012 | SF | A.J. Jenkins | WR | 2 | |
| 2013 | HOU | DeAndre Hopkins | WR | 51 | 2013 | NYJ | Dee Milliner | CB | 6 | |
| 2014 | LAR | Aaron Donald | DT | 69 | 2014 | PHI | Marcus Smith | LB | 3 | |
| 2015 | LAR | Todd Gurley | RB | 45 | 2015 | CHI | Kevin White | WR | 2 | |
| 2016 | DAL | Ezekiel Elliott | RB | 37 | 2016 | DEN | Paxton Lynch | QB | 2 | |
| 2017 | NO | Ryan Ramczyk | OT | 26 | 2017 | CIN | John Ross | WR | 2 | |
| 2018 | -- | Two Players | -- | 14 | 2018 | NE | Isaiah Wynn | OT | 0 | |
| Total | 430 | Total | 20 | |||||||
What all the numbers above show is that the draft can be a precarious proposition, even in the first round where the best available talent is supposed to be found. Over the last eight years, the Cowboys have been one of the most successful teams at mining this resource.
But even for the worst teams in the league, there is some hope, as they could have drafted much worse, just as there is reason for the best teams to improve their efforts, as they are still far away from realizing the maximum potential possible.
from Blogging The Boys - All Posts http://bit.ly/2Rm9CDS
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