The Cowboys’ inability to hit on second-round picks is something they have to work on moving forward.
It is in no way breaking news. The Dallas Cowboys have struggled to hit on second-round picks for a number of years. There are a handful of exceptions, but for the most part the round has served as their Achilles heel relative to the NFL draft at large.
Consider the last 10 players who the Cowboys picked in the second round, not including this year’s selection in Donovan Ezeiruaku as he has yet to play for the team:
- 2015: Randy Gregory
- 2016: Jaylon Smith
- 2017: Chidobe Awuzie
- 2018: Connor Williams
- 2019: Trysten Hill
- 2020: Trevon Diggs
- 2021: Kelvin Joseph
- 2022: Sam Williams
- 2023: Luke Schoonmaker
- 2024: Marshawn Kneeland
As noted there are players here who helped the team in some regard. Randy Gregory had his moments and Jaylon Smith was great across the 2018 season specifically. Chidobe Awuzie was a serviceable player and Connor Williams was a very solid return on investment.
Those are some of the older picks on this list, though. Consider that Trevon Diggs, by far the most successful of any player here, received a second contract from the team, but he was the first second-round pick to do so since Jaylon Smith almost a decade ago. What’s more is that there are a lot of Cowboys fans who want to see the team move on from that contract.
We have noted many times over the years that the foundation of an NFL roster is built across the draft as a whole and that hitting on these picks is absolutely critical. Training camp is a little over a month away and when it begins there is not a player who the Cowboys drafted in the second round themselves, again acknowledging that Ezeiruaku is in his own box in this sense, that they can reliably depend on.
Is there potential among the team’s second-rounders this year? Absolutely. Marshawn Kneeland may turn into the edge rusher opposite of Micah Parsons for all we know. Once upon a time we may have thought this about Sam Williams, but returning from a torn ACL means we have to temper expectations there.
Consider that last week there was a little bit of buzz around one of last year’s UDFAs in tight end Brevyn Spann-Ford. There was a report from the team’s minicamp that BSF was commanding some snaps with the ones. This immediately led to people panicking over the state of Jake Ferguson and worrying that he may not be properly in line as the team’s starting tight end, but at the risk of being overly-dramatic, what does that say about Luke Schoonmaker if Spann-Ford is worth getting that look? Again, nobody is trying to make anything mountain-like out of the mole hill that is a report from a mandatory minicamp in June, but you get the overall point.
What if I asked you who is the active second-round pick on this team who will contribute the most in 2025? Who would your answer be?
Conventional wisdom says it will be Trevon Diggs so that sort of feels like cheating. If we acknowledge that he is the top option then who else are you even considering?
The purpose of training camp is to answer questions that the team has about its roster and the utilization of players within it. One of the most essential things that they can do is figure out a proper way to utilize the players who they have “found” in the second round over the last handful of years. A lot of this season will depend on that.
