The Cowboys steal a major winner from America’s biggest loser
The following sentence may make you sick: No Dallas Cowboys rookie has impressed more people more than a kid from the University of Kansas.
Historically, when your favorite pro football team is leaning on a KU kid, you might want to dump the season ticket package on your in-laws. In this rare instance, America’s Team found a real winner from America’s biggest loser.
Defensive end Dorance Armstrong fell to the Cowboys in the fourth round in the ‘18 NFL Draft not because of anything he did but because of the team he played for in college.
KU won a total of three games in Armstrong’s college career: 3-33. Of those 33 losses, 29 were by double digits.
Fairness mandates I include that of Armstrong’s three wins he experienced at Kansas was the Jayhawks’ 24-21 overtime blowout over Texas in 2016 that basically cost UT coach Charlie Strong his job.
“I’ll never forget that game,” Armstrong said with a large smile. “We came out and played so well that day. That was so much fun.”
Every Aggie, Horned Frog, Bear and Red Raider agrees with Dorance.
To give you an idea how little Armstrong won, fellow Cowboys rookie and first-round pick Leighton Vander Esch enjoyed more wins in the month of October 2017 at Boise State than Armstrong did in his three years at KU.
NFL GMs and coaches all like to dismiss that this sort of losing has no impact on player evaluation, but it’s harder to notice guys on a bad team.
“It could at times,” Cowboys defensive coordinator Rod Marinelli said. “All eyes go to the Ohio States, the Clemsons, the ‘SCs the first time out of the chute. Good scouting, though, and you look at everybody.”
They may look at everybody, but it’s hard to be graded as a top-tier player when you’re on a losing team.
Had Armstrong played for a winning team, he would not have been a fourth-round pick. Had Armstrong played for even an average team, he would have had a little help and everything would have looked a little prettier.
He had 10 sacks as a sophomore in 2016, and in 2017, a miracle: He was KU’s first ever Preseason Big 12 Defensive Player of the Year selection. He followed that up with 1 1/2 sacks, and most of his numbers all went down.
He said the team changed defense schemes. What he won’t say is he had zero help. Opposing offenses could run away from him knowing full well the guy on the opposite side, or straight up the middle, wasn’t going to make a play.
NFL coaches and GMs all protest that it doesn’t matter where a player is picked; they can say this with supreme confidence because they’re not the ones being selected. Where a player is selected matters; it matters in terms of the size of the contract, and it matters in how much the team values you and will invest quality time in you.
Armstrong is not going to start just yet, but he’s going to cost a veteran his job on this roster, and he’s going to make the Cowboys defensive line better.
He’s already beaten All-Pro left tackle Tyron Smith 1-on-1 in drills, and he continually impresses his teammates and staffers. He’s a guy who has been easily noticed, for all of the right reasons.
Even Armstrong admits he did not think he would do this well this early.
“His balance is good. He penetrates the run well. For a rookie like that, that’s a pretty good start,” Marinelli said. “Now he’s just got to build on it.”
FYI: Marinelli, who coins nicknames for all of his players, has not settled on one for Dorance yet. For the time being, Marinelli is going with “Armweak.”
So how does a kid from Houston wind up at Kansas to play football? This was one of the most popular questions he had to answer at the NFL Combine.
“They showed me the most love recruiting,” he said.
Armstrong said he had scholarship offers from Michigan State, Houston, Indiana, Northwestern and Purdue, but “they didn’t recruit me like KU did.”
Wonders never cease.
This story was originally published August 22, 2018 at 7:00 AM.