D+
Dallas Cowboys
A costly weekend of dealing drags the Cowboys to a D+.
by Boke ·
2026 NFL Draft
· 11 picks
· 4 steals
· 4 reaches
The Cowboys went off the board in a big way for Patrick Payton, 70 picks early. Conviction is one thing; this is another. The process wobbled, and the D+ is where it lands.
The trade table is where this weekend went wrong. With quarterback unsolved, spending premium capital on edge rusher is the choice that costs them.
The quarterback hole is the one line item this class does not answer. Scott falling to them is the kind of break a good board is built to catch.
Spend now, pay later; the math only works if this class delivers.
Bottom line, they will need several of these picks to beat their grades just to break even, and quarterback is still a hole.
Pick-by-Pick
Good things come to war rooms that wait, and Caleb Downs at No. 9 is the proof. It thickens a room that could stand to be thicker.
In pick 29 they get an anchor for the defensive front, reach and all. A clean fit for the roster.
Quietly one of the better values of the day, Jake Golday at slot 74. Useful body for a position without much behind the starter.
Austin Barber at the 87th overall pick is the pick scouts circle, and not in a good way. A must-fix position, and they treated it like one.
Of all the spots to shop, they chose edge rusher. Tyreak Sapp in the Round 3 slot leaves quarterback for later.
Keionte Scott in pick No. 94 is the kind of fall that makes a whole class. Better still, it is exactly the hole they had to fill.
Ja'Kobi Lane at the Round 4 slot is the sort of value that quietly wins a weekend. It answers the question that was keeping the coaches up at night.
Kaytron Allen in pick 152 is fine work, a shade of surplus and no downside. One more legitimate question on the roster, answered.
A swing that ignored the value entirely, Patrick Payton well ahead of where he belonged. A want more than a need, though you can never have too many.
They paid sticker price for Kaleb Elarms-Orr in slot 180, and that is fine. The one spot they could not leave alone, and did not.
Miles Kitselman in the 218th overall pick is fair value, right on his grade. It plugs a real leak on the depth chart.