Cowboys didn’t get their man (or did they?)

By David Mullen

Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones just can’t sit still on Draft Day, and the 2021 NFL Draft held on the bonny banks of no longer combustible Lake Erie in beautiful downtown Cleveland was no exception. Draft Day is now Draft Days (three) leaving teams like Las Vegas, Houston and possibly Dallas in a draft daze.

By all indication, the Cowboys were going to take either defensive back Jaycee Horn from South Carolina or cornerback Patrick Surtain II from Alabama with the 10th overall pick. But a funny thing happened on the way to the forum at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. The Carolina Panthers (selecting eighth) and Denver Broncos (ninth) popped up and pilfered the projected players, leaving Dallas’ porous defense defenseless. The Cowboys were clueless in Cleveland.

And then along came Jones.

Trader Jones, as he so often does, made a Draft Day deal. But he did the unthinkable. He colluded with the enemy. That would never happen in Washington, D.C. In this case, Trader Jones sent the 10th pick to the hated Philadelphia Eagles. What next? Sending love letters to the New York Giants? 

In return, Dallas would draft 12th and selected Penn State linebacker Micah Parsons. With linebackers Sean Lee retiring and Leighton Vander Esch often injured and playing in his final contract year, picking Parsons made sense. He may have been the best defensive player in the draft. So how could he be available with the 12th pick?

ESPN’s draft guru Todd McShay — Mel Kiper Jr. 2.0 — suggested before the draft that Parsons had “off-the-field issues.” McShay said on his podcast, “Micah Parsons is the best defensive player in this draft based solely on tape, but he’s got some off-the-field issues, some past character stuff and some things that teams are concerned about in terms of bringing things in.”

Far be it for the Cowboys to ever have players that have had “off-the-field issues.” It’s gotten so bad that instead of drafting a right guard or left guard, I thought Jones was going to take a prison guard.

According to the Penn State website, Parson addressed the “vague issues” at Penn State’s Pro Day in March. Parsons said: “I was 17-18. We all made mistakes when we were 17-18. I’m not going to let it control or dictate the person I am now. I’m not going to let something that was 3-4 years [ago] dictate who I’ve become and the father I want to be.”

Nothing specific has ever been made public, but he was named in a hazing lawsuit filed by a former Penn State player in 2020. Parsons was never charged. Not defending hazing, but we all know that a lot more horrific things took place with the Penn State football team a few years earlier.

McShay did go on to say that despite his inferences: “I think [Parsons] is going to be a star in the league. I really do.” So do I.

Parsons opted out of the 2020 season, but he comes to the Cowboys with enormous potential. He was All-Big Ten, the Butkus–Fitzgerald Linebacker of the Year winner and a consensus All-American in 2019. At his pro day, he ran the 40-yard dash in 4.39 seconds and recorded a 34-inch vertical jump. He can play all linebacker positions and pass rush as well. Parsons turns 22 on Thursday, May 26.

The remainder of the Cowboys draft was rated “meh” by most observes. Trader Jones and staff stockpiled defensive players like a paranoid consumer hoards toilet paper during a pandemic.

In rounds two and three, the Cowboys chose cornerback Kelvin Joseph from Kentucky, defensive tackle 

Osa Odighizuwa from UCLA, defensive end Chauncey Golston from Iowa and Oregon State cornerback Nahshon Wright. Dallas was scoffed at for taking Wright. He is 6 foot-4, but weighs just 183 pounds. Nothing that a few visits to Whataburger can’t fix.

The most pleasant surprises may turn out to be fourth-round pick linebacker Jabril Cox from LSU and fifth round wide receiver Simi Fehoko. 

Cox is athletic and a first-class tackler, and Fehoko went on a two-year LDS mission to Seoul before starring at Stanford where he was First Team All-Pac-12. Neither player comes with any whispers of “character issues.”

While Trader Jones may have gone overboard the Bravo Eugina by selecting nine defensive players in the seven-round draft, when your team is last in the league in run defense and the 23rd worst defense overall, that is what you do. And at least the Cowboys have the Raiders and the Texans to kick around.

The Raiders took projected second or third round pick tackle Alex Leatherwood in the first round. They did move up to take projected first round pick TCU safety Trevon Moehrig in the second round. The Texans are a disaster and took mediocre quarterback Davis Mills with their top pick because Deshaun Watson may have rubbed too many Houston massage therapists the wrong way. Both teams are fraught with characters having issues.

Former NFL head coach and now TV talking head Jim Mora said that Parsons is “ready-made” for the NFL. “I know there’s been a couple questions out there lately about his character because of what happened a couple years ago, but I don’t think that’s going to be a factor,” Mora said. “I think this guy’s proven himself to be beyond reproach.”

“I just feel like I’m the most versatile player in this class,” Parsons said through the Penn State website. “I don’t think there’s any place I can’t play.” For Cowboys fans and jumpy new boss Trader Jones, they hope the place Parsons is referring to is Dallas.