Dallas Cowboys, happy with NFL Draft trade, get both their man and value in return
No matter what the Dallas Cowboys tell you, they went from happy to disappointed early on in the NFL Draft Thursday night.
Seven picks into the evening things appeared to be unfolding perfectly for the Cowboys, who held the 10th overall pick.
A run on offensive players left their top two targets sitting on the board with three slots to go.
It seemed evident that the Cowboys would be able to fill a targeted need at cornerback, but then South Carolina’s Jaycee Horn went eighth to the Carolina Panthers and Alabama’s Patrick Surtain II went ninth to the Denver Broncos.
Disappointed, but not necessarily surprised, a prepared Cowboys front office immediately went to work and turned lemons into lemonade.
They traded back two slots with the Philadelphia Eagles and wound up taking Penn State linebacker Micah Parsons at No. 12 and picking up an extra third-round pick in the process.
The Cowboys will now have five picks in the first 100 selections with one in the second round and three in the third round Friday night.
Most importantly, they accomplished their primary goal of getting an impact defensive player in the first round to help improve a unit that set a franchise record for points allowed in 2020 and gave up the second-most yards ever.
“Any bit of sensitivity about the cornerbacks being gone had been talked over carefully and with complete honesty within ourselves,” said team owner Jerry Jones after the draft. “We thought that Parsons would immediately turn the light on with optimism about what we could do with our [defense]. We saw that when Parsons was there, we knew it was going to be a good time for us.
“I am excited to get that rare individual with that rare attitude that he’s got. I’m excited about having him on defense. I’m excited about what he does for us,” he said.
The Cowboys had Parsons rated as the top defensive player on their draft board, but they were going to go with one of the cornerbacks first because it was their biggest need.
After Horn and Surtain were gone, Jones said there was no hesitation in trading with the NFC East-rival Eagles because of the value they were getting in return. But they didn’t want to slide too far back and miss out on Parsons.
“We had our eye on Micah and didn’t want to get too far down that road,” Jones said. “We could have really gone ahead and looked at moving down further in the round and picked up more picks. That was a possibility there. We just didn’t have the stomach to risk losing him relative to the valuation we had on him.”
Cowboys coach Mike McCarthy views Parsons a multi-positional player who impacts the game in a variety of ways. Most importantly, he rushes the quarterback and generates turnovers.
The 6-foot-3, 246-pound Parsons, who runs the 40-yard dash in 4.39 seconds, collected 109 tackles, 6 1/2 sacks and six forced fumbles in two seasons at Penn State.
“He’s got unbelievable speed and energy,” McCarthy said. “He plays the game the way we want to play on defense and the way we’re going to play on defense. Outside of his ability to be an impact player, he goes and gets the football. We just added a player that is outstanding at going and taking the football away.”
The Cowboys see Parsons as a player who can play in the same defense with linebacker holdovers Leighton Vander Esch and Jaylon Smith because of his ability to be a designated pass rusher..
McCarthy said Parsons will make Vander Esch and Smith better and more impactful players.
And Jones, the consummate spin doctor, used that cue to proclaim Parsons as a better fit to improve the defense immediately than one of the cornerbacks.
“We just got better,” Jones said. “We might have gotten better just by circumstances that we even could have managed to get better by going with him as opposed to one of the corners at this spot.”
Jones couldn’t be more complementary about Parsons, saying his makeup and the way he approaches the game was “an attention getter” in bolstering a defense that needed an infusion of attitude as well as playmaking skills.
“Obviously, physically, he is a freak,” Jones said. “He really has that. My perspective, I wanted a player there that really impacted strategy. That had a way for us to load it up and give unique problems because of the nature of his play. He gives us that.”
The Cowboys also believe they have draft capital to address the cornerback position with four picks in the second and third rounds on Friday night.
Packaging picks to move up to target a player is certainly an option at their disposal.
“We feel good about it,” vice president Stephen Jones said. “We did a lot of work on our board, and that is why we followed our board when we picked Parsons. We should really be able to improve our football team, and I think there are going to be some great opportunities to fill that corner need at some point.”
