Cowboys Turn Things Over To The Draftees
The draft classes of '23 and '24 will go a long ways to deciding the fate of this season.
When we look at the 2024 Dallas Cowboys, we see a good team. There is plenty to like, and there are scenarios where this team shocks you—in a good way. They have a large variance of outcomes this year, maybe more than we have seen in a while. This team can either win the division and make a playoff run, or they could conceivably drop badly and serve as a prelude to a rebuild in 2025.
I see this team winning 10 games again, but I must admit there are a few pivot points to this whole operation. Aside from the looming specter of allowing its franchise QB to begin a rather unprecedented walk out the door as a 31-year old UFA who has never overseen a Cowboys team with a losing record in his nine years at the helm, the one that should really reveal plenty about this team’s draft-and-develop ethos is on my mind today.
Above, please take note of the Cowboys' unofficial depth chart that was released on Wednesday going into Week 1 at Cleveland. This is a non-binding document that the team offers the public to give you an idea of how everyone will be deployed when the ball is in the air at 3:25 p.m. on Sunday. There are details that are revealing and others that are probably subterfuge, but regardless, it is something I like to spend a few moments reviewing.
What jumped out at me is that this is a very young football team. Let me show you.
We have seven green arrows on that chart, with four on offense and three on defense. That color signifies members of the 2024 Cowboys draft class. In other words, those seven players were playing on Saturdays one year ago and will be playing against grown men for the very first time in Cleveland.
We have thirteen blue arrows on the chart, with eight on offense—all are backups—and then four on defense and one kicker. These are members of the 2023 draft class.
You may be pretty well aware of how disappointing that 2023 draft class was in their rookie seasons. That doesn’t have to be their epitaph. They are cordially invited to “change the narrative” in 2024 and this whole operation may depend largely on them doing just that.
So, that is 20 names! 20 players who were not part of this thing 18 months ago and almost none of them – aside from Brandon Aubrey – made an appreciable difference at all in 2023. You could argue that the entire list, save for who might soon be the best kicker in the NFL, has never made a single play that has much mattered for the Dallas Cowboys.
Not one.
And yet, here I am claiming that this entire season could swing between 7-10 and 11-6 based on how good these guys are.
No pressure, guys.