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Even though the 2013 NFL Draft is dead and gone, it is still the topic of plenty of conversation amongst fans and friends of the NFL. It’s all too common, people want to dissect the winners and losers and grade how each team did, just like after a game. The NFL Draft will remain a topic of conversation for a few more days and that leaves me an opportunity to give my final thoughts about the Dallas Cowboys draft.
I wrote this the other day but it bears repeating; pay no attention to draft grades because they are meaningless. It’s just something to talk about to keep the NFL chatter going for a few more days and to extend draft coverage, that’s it. No NFL game has been won or lost because of some grade that was given out to a team by people who have no input inside any organization. It’s an arbitrary value put on months of work and it is completely useless to assess a grade before seeing the players play in actual games.
No matter what anyone thought of the Cowboys draft, know this, the team feels great about their draft picks and that’s the biggest thing I’ve taken away from the Cowboys draft. One of the issues with the Jerry Jones and the Cowboys has long been they don’t trust themselves or their board when they are on the clock and it leads to indecision. That has not been the case since Jason Garrett has been the head coach and it certainly wasn’t the case in the 2013 NFL Draft.
The Cowboys had Travis Frederick rated very highly and when their other options were gone, they picked him. The same can be said for Gavin Escobar, Terrance Williams and J.J. Wilcox; at every spot int he draft, the Cowboys selected the players they liked on their draft board. They trusted their scouts, stayed true to their draft board and took players they wanted.
Time will tell if the Cowboys made the right decisions but at least they believed in the players they picked and were happy with their decisions. Draftniks and analysts might not agree with what the Cowboys did but the only people who will have to live with the results are the people in the Cowboys organization. The team trusted in what they were doing and there is something to be said for that.
This is not a new concept for the Cowboys either because Dallas has done this much better in the past few years and it’s been doing is working out. The Cowboys have trusted their draft board in the last few drafts and it’s gotten them players like Sean Lee, Bruce Carter, DeMarco Murray and Dwayne Harris, so it appears as though their draft board has been pretty good. Having trust in each other has been a huge step in the right direction for the Cowboys and let’s hope that trust continues with a solid group of players in 2013.
The Cowboys organization has trust in each other and that is more meaningful than any draft grade they’ve been given. And after looking at some of the draft grades for the Cowboys, that’s a good thing.
Ben is a Cowboys writer for www.Rantsports.com and you can chat with or follow Ben on twitter @BenGrimaldi
