'25 Film Study - Clemson's RB Phil Mafah

Cowboys decided to double-up at RB and they have two fine Day 3 rookies to develop.

Our continuing coverage of the deeper draft picks taken in the 2025 draft by the Cowboys is wrapping up this week, we hope. Earlier this month, it was 5th round LB Shemar James and 6th rounder OT Ajani Cornelius. Today, we will do RB Phil Mafah from Clemson and then perhaps before the week ends, it will be DT Tommy Akingbesote from Maryland.

And that will conclude our efforts to provide college film study and the 200-snap evaluation on every single draft player in the 2025 draft and be up to speed on each of them before we get to training camp.

Obviously, Mafah and Akingbesote are both players on this list that we would consider to be very deep 7th round players. This often becomes just taking guys who you had liked in the evaluation process because “they are too good to pass on” in the eyes of your personnel department. Other times it is guys who you think may not get selected at all, but you don’t want to lose them in the chaotic rush after the draft to secure the undrafted free agents.

In both cases, they had taken that position earlier in the draft but then decided to circle back and hit it again with a guy who is not that much lower in the evaluation stacks or consensus boards. For instance, the great Dane Brugler had Jaydon Blue as his RB21 and Mafah as his RB25. You can see that there was probably a lot of work done on each player as they were both “Day 3 RB candidates” in this very deep class or runners and while Blue was more of what they wanted – HR juice – Mafah might have been a big enough compliment where you say, why not just grab both and take them to camp to see how we look?

It makes great sense when have 10 picks to trade a few to move up (Shemar James) and also to double up on certain areas of need (RB and DT). Mafah was pick 237, a pick that originally belonged to Green Bay before they dealt it to Tennessee for QB Malik Willis last August. That pick was then turned over to Dallas when the Titans flipped LB Kenneth Murray and that pick to Dallas for a 6th Rounder (pick 188 that became Michigan RB Kalel Mullings (Brugler’s RB23, by the way)).

So, without further ado, let’s look at this big RB from Clemson: