Kyle Terada-Imagn Images
The dreaded R-word during every NFL draft season is “reach.” It’s a label that gets thrown around a lot, meaning a player was drafted well ahead of where analysts said he should go. Nobody wants to hear their favorite team’s picks criticized like this, but we also shouldn’t overreact if it happens. Just as every class has its busts, they also have so-called reaches who prove to be far better than expected.
Draft analysis is the annual game of speculation and big statements about players’ NFL potential. Nobody actually dies on any hill in this activity; lots of back-patting when proven right, but rarely any mea culpas or getting called out for being wrong. Draft “experts” load up on predictions, quote their own wins on social media, and hope nobody takes a screenshot of the bad ones.
Inevitably this week, a player will go a round or more ahead of where some thought he should and the pick will be called a reach. You’ll also have picks praised for their wisdom and bravery only for the player to wind up as a colossal bust. As we all know, college tape and combine numbers only tell part of the story. But just as many of the most-hyped draft prospects are complete flops in the pros, many who didn’t find that same momentum going into April will wind up as future Pro Bowlers and All-Pros.
For the modern-era Cowboys, perhaps no player better exemplified this than Travis Frederick. Even as just the 31st overall pick in the 2013 NFL Draft, Frederick was almost universally declared a reach by the mainstream “experts.” While generally seen as the best center prospect of the class, Frederick’s perceived talent and the position he played still made him a Day 2 pick to most. When Dallas made him their first-round pick, it was easy fodder for attention-seeking critics.
In just his second season, Frederick went to his first Pro Bowl and was named a Second-Team All-Pro. He would become a fixture for both awards until the untimely end of his career due to a neurological disorder after 2019. But even without all the chapters he should’ve added, Frederick’s story was still good enough to be one of the elite players of his draft class. That 2013 pick went from a misdiagnosed reach to one of Dallas’ all-time best draft decisions.
That year, the Cowboys were going to be back on the clock 16 picks later at #47. If they’d waited until then, maybe they could have snagged another stud like TE Zach Ertz (35th) or CB Darius Slay (36th) in the first and still landed Frederick in the second round. But after two years of Phil Costa’s work at center, Dallas wanted an immediate upgrade and wasn’t willing to chance it. Thankfully, Frederick was good enough to leave nobody with regrets.
The decision to draft a player is based on a balancing of multiple factors. The key two are a prospect’s perceived talent and a team’s need at the position, but another big one is the window of opportunity from one pick to the next. The Cowboys didn’t gamble with Travis Frederick because they didn’t think he’d still be there by their second-round pick. Similarly, if you’re focused on needing a certain caliber of talent at a position, hoping someone falls to your next pick could leave you lacking.
Think about Dallas’ undeniable need for a new starting WR from this draft. Many are hoping that Arizona’s Tet McMillan falls to the 12th pick, but let’s say he doesn’t. The consensus next three prospects of Matthew Golden, Emeka Egbuka, and Luther Burden have all been in the first-round conversation for most of the cycle. There’s a generally perceived dropoff from that group to the next tier of prospects like Tre Harris, Jaylin Noel, and Jayden Higgins. If the Cowboys end up with one from the lesser group in the second round, it won’t be seen as a win by the masses.
So no, maybe you don’t see Golden, Egbuka, or Burden as a Top-15 overall prospect in this class. Some do have Golden equal with McMillan, and there’s a chance both could be off the board by then. But if the 12th pick is your opportunity to get a new starting WR and these are the only guys you believe can immediately offer that, then you may not want to gamble one of them falling into Friday.
Of course, in this scenario, we’d love to see Dallas trade down for some additional picks and still get one of the upper-tier receivers. But that requires another team to want to move up and be willing to sacrifice the capital. If they can’t find any dance partners, the Cowboys may just have to suck it up and turn in a card.
If the Cowboys draft Burden or Egbuka, perhaps even Golden at the 12th pick, then there will be critics painting the scarlet R on the decision. Maybe they’ll be right, or maybe that player will start putting out 1,000-yard seasons in short order. Rest assured, those naysayers will have little to say if it’s the latter. They’ll be on to the next draft class, loading up another cycle of speculation.
We’ve all heard of Captain Hindsight, but draft season is the time for General Guess and Admiral Assume. That isn’t to say guys who dig into the draft and have their opinions aren’t good at what they do, but the true results of a draft aren’t known by Saturday night, or even by the end of the season. All the grades, good and bad, are ultimately meaningless until there’s evidence from players’ development and production.
You take the good with the bad from every draft. Even in 2013, the Cowboys got a huge win with Travis Frederick but lost on TE Gavin Escobar with the next pick. Escobar was considered equal to, sometimes even greater than, Travis Kelce as a prospect that year. Again, you just don’t know until you see how these kids adapt to the NFL.
So don’t overreact to the flood of analysis coming this weekend as the Cowboys make their picks. Odds are, a pick you and the rest of the world love isn’t going to become the player you hoped. With that, a pick you’re indifferent to or even not happy about could be one of Dallas’ future stars. Nothing that’s been said over the last few months or is said after the draft really matters; how the teams and players maximize potential will decide where the true reaches, busts, and wins really are in the 2025 draft class.
