B+
Dallas Cowboys
The Cowboys won the night they stopped Mondon Jr. from sliding. Grade: B+.
by mbuc ·
2025 NFL Draft
· 8 picks
· 7 steals
· 1 reaches
The board owed the Cowboys one, and it paid up: Smael Mondon Jr., the No. 99 name on the board, sitting there at Round 5, Pick 33 like a gift left on the doorstep. The bottom line is a respectable B+.
They are betting Broughton proves the room right and everyone else wrong. They covered a lot of ground and still skipped quarterback, which is a strange place to end up.
Good work on the whole, with quarterback the one box left unchecked.
Pick-by-Pick
In No. 20 they get a lockdown presence outside, and a steal at that. Exactly the need they had to hit.
Luther Burden III at Round 2, Pick 14 is a first-round grade at a bargain-bin price, no notes. The one spot they could not leave alone, and did not.
A slide stopped in pick 76, with TreVeyon Henderson worth more than the price. A sensible fit that makes the depth chart a little sturdier.
A top-tier offensive lineman at a bargain, Armand Membou in the Round 3 slot, plain and simple. A glaring weakness, addressed head on.
A swing that ignored the value entirely, Vernon Broughton well ahead of where he belonged. It plugs a real leak on the depth chart.
You do not let a safety like Sebastian Castro reach the 148th overall pick and blink. They did not. It thickens a room that could stand to be thicker.
They robbed the room for Kalel Mullings here, a fall nobody at the table saw coming. Another box on the needs board, quietly ticked.
Somehow Smael Mondon Jr. was still sitting there in slot 170, and they pounced on premier linebacker value. A must-fix position, and they treated it like one.