The NFL draw is next week and teams are working hard to come up with strategies to build their rosters for the 2021 season.
This is normally when phones start ringing about moving up or down in the draft, and with the No. 10 pick in their possession, the Dallas Cowboys are in a great place to get some phone calls. Executive Vice President Stephen Jones recently joined the K&C Masterpiece on 105.3 The Fan, and when asked if teams have started hitting the Cowboy’s phone lines, he had this to say.
“It’s really just starting to pick up in terms of – I’m sure it’s called at the top, because you could – we’ve already seen a trade,” Jones said. “But where we are, we’re probably starting to get a few calls, and I think it will only pick up as we get closer to Thursday. It only picks up. Eventually they call you, ‘Hey, if our guy is here we’d be interested in going to the pickup’ and they might even want to fill in a few things like what’s required and stuff like that. So you start putting yourself in a mode where you are prepared for a particular team to call as their player, be it a quarterback or an offensive lineman or a defensive player. They usually won’t reveal that, which shouldn’t surprise you. But they do say, ‘Hey, we have a player, two or three, that if they are there, we might be willing to be aggressive and give you something to go to that choice.’ ”
The Cowboys would probably trade down instead of up if the right offer came out. A situation where a team wanted to move up to select a quarterback, or a division rival who wanted to target a specific player, would likely require a bounty for Dallas to move away from the spot. Getting a future first round pick may or may not be possible, but a second round pick can serve them well.
This could give the Cowboys a chance to grab a corner back from above plus an elite safety. while also enabling them to tackle the interior of their line of defense with the 44th pick.
There are tons of configurations that could turn the premium of ending up as one of the worst teams of 2020 into multiple leads.