The NFL draft is next week and teams are doing their best to devise strategies to set up their schedules for the 2021 season.
This is usually the time when phones start ringing whether they are moving up or down in draft, and with the number 10 pick in their possession, the Dallas Cowboys are the best place to receive calls. Executive Vice President Stephen Jones recently joined the K&C Masterpiece on 105.3 The Fan, and when asked if teams started hitting the Cowboy’s phone lines, he had it to say.
“It’s actually just starting to increase in terms of – I’m sure at the top it’s hot, because you can – we’ve already seen one trade done,” Jones said. ‘But probably, where we sit, we’re starting a few calls, and I think it’s only going to increase as we get closer to next Thursday. It will just pick up. Eventually they give you ‘hey, if our guy was there, we’d be interested in going to the polls’ and maybe even fill in a few things, like it would take and that sort of thing. So you start putting yourself in a mode where you are willing to call a specific team as their player, whether it is a quarterback or an attacking linebacker or a defensive player. They will usually not disclose it, which should not surprise you. But they say, ‘Hello, we have a player, two or three, that if they’re there, we might be willing to be aggressive and give you something to move on to the selection.’ ‘
The Cowboys are likely to trade instead of up if the right offer materializes. A situation in which a team was looking to move up to pick a quarterback, or say a competitor from the division that wants to target a specific player, would likely need a premium for Dallas to get out of the spot to move away. A future choice in the first round may or may not be possible, but a second round may serve them well.
This could give the Cowboys a chance to grab a top corner plus an elite safety. while also allowing them to address the inside of their defensive line with the 44th pick.
There are numerous configurations that could take advantage of ending up as one of 2020’s worst teams in various prospects.