B
Dallas Cowboys
Grand theft in pick No. 168: the Cowboys steal Neal and grade out a B.
by Rodrigo ·
2025 NFL Draft
· 10 picks
· 7 steals
· 0 reaches
The Cowboys did not reach, did not trade up, did not blink. They just waited, and Devin Neal fell into the 168th pick. It nets out to a B, which feels about right.
They covered a lot of ground and still skipped cornerback, which is a strange place to end up. They left with wide receiver solved and the rest of the wish list mostly ticked off.
Value over need was the throughline, for better and worse.
Add it up and it is a good, unfussy class.
Pick-by-Pick
Malaki Starks at pick No. 12 is neither steal nor reach, just the going rate. A quiet depth add at a thin-ish spot.
A slide stopped in the 44th overall pick, with Tate Ratledge worth more than the price. That was the need underlined and circled, and now it is checked off.
A top-tier linebacker at a bargain, Jihaad Campbell in pick 76, plain and simple. A must-fix position, and they treated it like one.
They robbed the room for Cam Skattebo here, a fall nobody at the table saw coming. The roster fit checks out.
You do not let a running back like Devin Neal reach the 168th pick and blink. They did not. A real hole, addressed with a reasonable pick.
The board fumbled Smael Mondon Jr. all the way to slot 170, and they scooped it up. Better still, it is exactly the hole they had to fill.
They did well to land Dont'e Thornton Jr. in Round 5, Pick 36, just ahead of his grade. The biggest hole on the depth chart just got a whole lot smaller.
They will replay Connor Colby at No. 186 for years; that is how good the value is. It answers the question that was keeping the coaches up at night.
Terrance Ferguson in slot 209 is exactly on the number, no argument either way. A need, and now a little less of one.
They barely believed it either: Jack Kiser still on the board at the 248th pick. This was priority one on the needs board, and now it is handled.