FRISCO — By now, you've probably heard about the Cowboys' draft and development philosophy. It has produced star players such as CeeDee Lamb, Dak Prescott, Zack Martin, Micah Parsons, and Trevon Diggs.
They also have some surprising draft picks, like Pro Bowl left guard Tyler Smith, should the Cowboys fail to find a replacement for Tyron Smith in Thursday's NFL Draft. Cornerback Daron Brand, a 2022 fifth-round pick, has emerged as the starter after recording 14 interceptions over the past two seasons.
So what is the drafting and development philosophy? And when did it start and did it work?
In drafting and development, teams build their rosters with the hope that their top picks will earn second contracts through the draft. With most of the salary cap available for draft picks, free agency is reserved for signing veterans on short-term deals. In order to sign a free agent to a big contract, a major need must be met.
“If you embrace the draft and draft well, you can grow,” Cowboys executive vice president Stephen Jones said. “When we have success as an organization, you start to embrace that. The coaches who have continued to grow and let them play and have these players playing with confidence right away, let them grow, Be successful.”
The downside to drafting and developing is that the lack of signing big-time free agents and the huge contracts franchises have to offer to players who emerge as stars push the salary cap to the edge. .
The last time the Cowboys made a big splash in free agency was in the 2012 offseason, when they signed seven free agents: two offensive linemen, a safety, a cornerback, a backup quarterback, a fullback and a linebacker. .
Cornerback Brandon Carr was the jewel of the class, signing a $26.5 million, five-year, $50.1 million contract. After that, nothing special happens.
Sure, the Cowboys signed pass rusher Greg Hardy in 2015, but that attempt failed to revitalize the defense, but adding depth and short-term fixes is what this team is all about. It's more of what the franchise did in free agency.
The draft is where the Cowboys have been building this team and will continue to do so this week.
The only thing missing is a Super Bowl title.
Over the summer, the Cowboys are faced with signing Lamb to the largest contract in league history for a receiver. Prescott is seeking a third contract that averages at least $50 million a season.
Next year, the team will be dealing with a contract that could give Parsons an average annual salary of more than $30 million per season.
That's the price you pay when you create a draft and develop it well.
“We've accepted that we're going to have no cap room,” team owner and general manager Jerry Jones said. “Just like we accepted to use it when we got it. So you're accepting a lot about where you are.”
The Cowboys are drafting well, but are they drafting well based on value? It hasn't led to a championship, which begs the question, “Does drafting and development really work?”
In 2005, the Cowboys considered this issue.
Alec Shiner, the Cowboys' senior vice president and general counsel at the time, read a research paper by professors Cade Massey and Richard Saylor entitled “Overconfidence and Market Efficiency in the National Football League.”
This paper looked at how NFL teams drafted and whether that thought process worked. In some cases, the paper believed the idea was flawed.
“In a rational world, the rate at which a pick's value declines during the draft period should be determined by two factors: a team's ability to predict the success rate of a promising player and the amount of money it has to pay a player. “These are the players who were drafted,” the professors wrote. “To take an extreme example, if a team has no ability to predict future value, an early pick won't have the same value as a later pick. They're all equally valuable lottery tickets. On the other hand, if prices plummet, This means that performance is very predictable.”
Cowboys officials met with the professors and discussed the theory.
You could argue that professors were ahead of the curve in studying analytics to put more realistic values on draft selections. They found that the only difference in draft picks is the compensation given to first-round picks compared to other round picks.
For example, in 2019, the Cowboys played in 25 games from second-round pick defensive tackle Trysten Hill. Running back Tony Pollard (fourth round) and safety Donovan Wilson (sixth round) played in a combined 145 games.
Wilson will remain with the team, while Pollard and Hill will be on other teams. Were Pollard and Wilson worth more to the Cowboys than Hill?
Tyler Smith is the better player in the Cowboys' 2022 draft class. But the combination of second-round pick Sam Williams, third-round pick Jalen Tolbert, fourth-round pick Jake Ferguson, and fifth-round picks Brand and Damone Clark will play more games. did.
From a financial standpoint, it would cost the Cowboys even more if Smith continues his upward trajectory in his second contract. Is a mid-round pick worth more than Smith?
This is what drafting and development does for teams. This will give you an idea of the player's true value, but may give you pause as to whether or not to pay the player his second time. And when a player performs at such a high level, the economic impact increases as well. When you have multiple high-performing teams like the Cowboys, you end up pushing your team closer to its salary cap limit.
“On average, higher picks perform better than lower picks,” said Massey, a professor of practice in the Wharton School's Department of Management, Information and Decision Making. “It's a really smooth curve. Yes, there's information in the draft, but the players taken in the lower rounds are completely different players. But the problem is that the compensation curve is steeper, so the first round… The players are better than the second-round players, but they're not much better, they're more expensive.”
Working around Parsons and Lamb, both first-round picks, would be considered questionable. Looking at the Cowboys' 2016 and 2017 draft classes, the most valuable of the 18 players selected were two mid-round picks: a fourth-round pick in 2016; Prescott and slot corner Jordan Lewis, a 2016 third-round pick. 2017.
Both players will remain with the team. Lewis signed his third one-year deal with the Cowboys, and Prescott is expected to sign his third contract at some point this summer.
In some cases, finding the best players for your team in draft and development mode can take days two and three.
“The market value of draft picks doesn't seem to reflect their actual value,” Massey said. “The market value of draft picks has skyrocketed even further in our assessment and is much higher than it should be. That's mostly about first-round picks. The difference isn't that big. [with lower picks]. The first round was a little off. ”
When asked whether Thursday's No. 24 pick or the No. 1 pick would be better for the Cowboys, Massey said: If we were actually going to draft a player, we would say the 24th player is better than the first, but we were shocked to see such an outcome. ”
The Cowboys' biggest problem is taking the next step in their development as a team. They scout well. They draft well. they develop well.
Now they need something that the draft or development probably won't give them: a title.
“It's called availability,” Jerry Jones said. “Some of the players you rely on are injured. Some of them have a short playing life at their age. It's also clear that the ability level is not what you expected. These are all mistakes we made left and right, but there were also some mistakes. As I said, you don't need to do this unless you have a high tolerance for ambiguity, which means you don't know what's around the corner.
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