Here’s a very interesting link showing EVERY COWBOY PLAYER EVER DRAFTED YEAR BY YEAR. You can judge for yourself the players who have been surprisingly good and who has been surprisingly bad over the years.
https://www.pro-football-reference.com/teams/dal/draft.htm
Three things to notice which players were “successful picks” and those who weren’t:
- Total Games played in the NFL.
- Honors (if any- pro bowls, All Pro, HOF)
- Value (example- a 3rd- 7th round pick who played a ton of NFL games is a HIGH VALUE pick.
This isn’t the “be all, end all”, but it is a fairly simple and accurate way to know if a draft pick turned into a quality NFL player or not. If a drafted player only plays in 10 NFL games in 4 yrs…not good. On the other hand, if they play in 60+ games in 4 yrs, good player.
Some quick examples of a “high value” and low value pick:
SOME HIGH VALUE PICKS:
- Anthony Hitchens-LB, 4th round pick in 2014 draft- has played in 119 NFL games, made a pro bowl and is still playing in the league.
- Dak Prescott- QB, 4th round pick in 2016 draft- played in 85 games, NFL Offensive ROY, made pro bowl, etc. (whatever one thinks about Dak, he’s “high value”)
- Tony Pollard– RB, 4th round pick, played in 46 games, and probably current best RB.
SOME LOW VALUE PICKS
- David Arkin– G, 2011 4th round, only played in 4 NFL games.
- Gavin Escobar, TE, 2013 2nd round, played in 64 games in 6 seasons; was out of the league in 5 years.
- The entire Cowboys 2009 draft, lol!
You get the idea. Interesting to look at the history of Cowboys draft picks.
