The Upset Sports

A DFW-centric sports subscription site.

Main navigation

Cowboys Mailbag: Taco, First-Rounders, and identifying the prospects less scouted

by 1 Comment

(Editor: Thanks to the stunning, world-famous, accolade-laden Stars and Rangers mailbags, it’s time to crack open a Cowboys mailbag and see what our illustrious duo of Jeff Cavanaugh and Kevin Turner have to say in response to your Cowboys questions. JC? KT? You guys ready? Alright! Aaaaaand go!)

KT: It’s remarkable that UTSA has draft-able players, considering it’s a program that launched in 2012, but edge rusher Marcus Davenport is a name to keep an eye on throughout the entire draft process.  Davenport is long at 6’5″ 250, and showed some real pass rush ability on tape.  He still has issues playing high, and you’d like to see a little more bend, but he’s strong, mean, shows good effort, has great length, and is fairly athletic. His 3-cone drill at the combine will be really fascinating, because improved agility and bend could skyrocket him up the boards.Another name that admittedly I haven’t seen yet (but will watch soon) is UTEP offensive guard Will Hernandez. NFLDraftScout.com currently has him ranked #55 on their website.  Good to see some smaller Texas schools represent the great state of Texas!

JC: Davenport is a good name for sure. I’ll contribute the receiver names that I really like: Anthony Miller at Memphis is a player with the traits and production and so is Michael Gallup from Colorado State.  I’ll have full write ups on them in the near future but Gallup is my pet cat, so to speak.  He doesn’t have one thing that jumps out as you at dominant, but I can’t find a weakness.  He’s a very good route runner, comes back to the ball, catches through contact and makes guys miss after the catch.

KT: If you would have asked me this question in week 8, I would have said defense.  I think it’ll be pretty spread out in the draft; I don’t think they’ll draft heavily on one side of the ball.  While I do think both units will be improved in 2018, I think the offense will be more improved. Healthy Tyron, a full season of Zeke, and the addition of another offensive playmaker in the draft will really remedy the problems this offense had down the stretch.

JC: The answer to which side is better NEEDS to be the offense.  That’s the way they built the team with the investments in the offensive line.  That said, I expect offense to be the bigger focus in the offseason.  I’m hoping (but not totally convinced) that the answer at QB is the guy that’s here right now.  So they need to address the left guard spot, the swing tackle (backup to both offensive tackles), wide receiver and tight end.  Jason Witten won’t live forever and the current group of wideouts didn’t do a good enough job separating and making splash plays.

KT: I think there is no singular problem, it’s a conglomerate of small problems that hopefully aren’t as big as they seem.  The scheme is too predictable, the receivers don’t get a ton of separation, they don’t have a true #1 WR, the quarterback isn’t very comfortable seeing and reading defenses down the field, the pass protection wasn’t as good as it has been in years past, and to top it all off, it just doesn’t seem like the coaching staff is willing to try new things to mix it up very often.

But I could see a world where a healthy Zeke fixes a lot of issues. A healthy Tyron Smith fixes the pass protection issues, which also directly impacted the confidence and comfort of Dak.  A new toy in the draft could help the WR group, but using Switzer in the offense a little bit could help as well.  So a lot of these problems seem to be fixable.  The problem with evaluating this is that the Cowboys went 13-3, then endured a year without 6 games of Zeke. That kind of muddies up the waters and makes you wonder if you’re actually seeing what you think you are seeing. Their philosophy will be to re-rack and take another shot at it, but the worst possible scenario here is that we find out at the end of 2018 that we need better QB play. I do have faith Dak will rebound and improve in 2018.

JC: The answer is always the opposite of what you’d hear on First Take or whatever bad national programming is out there.  It’s C) Yes. Defenses have a better feel for what Dak wants to do and do their best to limit it.  He wasn’t protected like he was in 2016.  This WR group has shown they don’t do a great job of giving Dak large windows to throw into and the coaching staff is fairly predictable in their play calling.

KT: Taco Charlton gave the team exactly what I thought he’d give them this year.  I thought he’d struggle early and flash towards the end of the year, and that’s exactly what happened. I saw enough at the end of the year to be content, if not comfortable with him being my 3rd or 4th DE in the rotation.  I know people like to kill the coordinators a lot, but I think Rod deserves credit for Taco’s progression throughout the year.

I still wish we had T.J. Watt though.

JC: The last three or four weeks were encouraging.  The first half of the season was depressing.  He’s learning to use the tools he has to be a solid NFL player.  I think he’ll continue to improve and be a decent NFL starter at some point in year two or three.

KT: We sure the hell can.

JC: I won’t make you click a link because I care about you more than KT does.  Here’s who they picked and where we had them rated:

Taco Charlton – 2nd round player to us.  We were right.  I hate KT for swinging the vote and getting him to the 2nd.  I had him in the 3rd.

Chido Awuzie – 4th round player to us.  They were right it looks like.

Jourdan Lewis – 3rd round player to us.  That’s where they picked him.  Would have gone higher had he not had his domestic violence accusation (that he was cleared of during training camp) hanging over his draft stock.

Ryan Switzer – 4th round player to us.  That’s where they picked him.

Xavier Woods – 3rd round player to us.  They picked him in the 6th.  We were right.

Marquez White – 5th round player to us.  They took him in the 6th.  He’s hanging out on the practice squad.

Noah Brown is the only 7th rounder worth mentioning.  We actually had him all the way in the 3rd round.  He probably belonged somewhere in between.

KT:  Still got a ton of work to do, but for now my first round grades are WR: Calvin Ridley, Christian Kirk, and Michael Gallup / G: Quenton Nelson / T: Mike McGlinchey / RB: Saquon Barkley / EDGE: Bradley Chubb / DT: Vito Vea / LB: Roquan Smith / CB: Minkah Fitzpatrick / S: Derwin James.

That’s without studying the QBs yet, and with a long way to go in the process. We’ll try to keep this updated in future mailbags.

JC:  At the moment, I don’t have Kirk or Gallup as a first round grade.  Derwin James I’m not comfortable with yet, but will probably end up there.  I’ll add Brian O’Neill (the OT from Pitt), and Maurice Hurst (DT, Michigan).  We’re certainly not done yet.

(EDITOR: Alright, everyone, that’s all! *puts towels over Kevin and Jeff’s heads* These guys have to get back to their radio jobs at 105.3 The Fan. Thanks for participating, and we’ll have another Cowboys mailbag for you soon. To get your questions in, follow Jeff, Kevin, and The Upset on Twitter, or if you don’t have a Twitter account, post your question here, and we’ll try to get it into the next one. Thanks!)

Reader Interactions

Comments

Leave a Reply