Dallas Cowboys head coach Brian Schottenheimer was at the University of Texas Pro Day in late March when a reporter asked him about his draft approach. He started with the right things at first.

“It’s just getting to know all of the prospects,” he said. “From Stephen and Jerry [Jones] down, Will McClay, Mitch LaPoint, Ross [Wuensche], Chris Vaughn, they’ve done a great job of setting the board, and now I’m kind of going through all the positions.”

And then he pointed to how the Cowboys were planning to tackle the offense. 

“You want to be prepared to do what we need to do on defense, but certainly we’re not going to pass on a great offensive player if they’re there at one of those spots,” Schotty said.

So don’t count them out of opting for an offensive piece in Pittsburgh. But is that really such a good idea? Dallas holds picks 12 and 20, largely projected to be spent on defense. Last year, they surrendered the second-worst points-per-game (30.1) in 66 years of Cowboys football. Jerry Jones promised a defensive rebuild in free agency, made some moves, including signing a linebacker, but not someone who can make a big impact.

The hole they left open

Dallas’ free agency moved like a team checking boxes. Safety Jalen Thompson came in on a three-year deal. Rashan Gary arrived via trade, an edge rusher who has spent as much time injured as on the field. Cobie Durant added corner depth. Otito Ogbonnia and Jonathan Bullard came in as defensive tackle rotation pieces. Sam Williams re-signed on a one-year prove-it deal. Williams is expected to carry significant weight in the pass rush, even though he has just 9.5 career sacks and has never started more than five games in a season.

George Pickens got the franchise tag at $27.3 million. Javonte Williams replaced Tony Pollard, and Sam Howell signed up to sit behind Dak Prescott. The offense grew, the defense got cheaper, and out of the $42.9 million spent in free agency, only a minor portion went into bringing back outside linebacker Tyrus Wheat from the Detroit Lions.

Tyrus logged 66 defensive snaps and 1.5 sacks with Detroit in 2025. And at a one-year $1.75 million deal, he is a rotation piece at best. 

So, Dallas enters the draft with no proper answer at the most urgent position on the roster. Still, Schotty sees progress.

“I think we did a really good job of setting ourselves up to be able to draft natural and draft pure, which is what you want to do,” Schottenheimer said. “You don’t want to have to be forced to reach for a player; that’s when you make mistakes.”

Two names surfaced immediately after Brian Schottenheimer said this in March. Carnell Tate, a wide receiver ESPN grades as a top-10 talent, and Notre Dame RB Jeremiyah Love, who is described as “the kind of player who changes conversations about an offense.”

Both could be on the board at pick 12, and Brian Schottenheimer might just get tempted.

The obvious counter-argument is that Dallas already has CeeDee Lamb, a freshly tagged George Pickens, and a pass-heavy scheme that was the second-best in the league last year. The offense doesn’t really need another piece. As for the linebacker room, Donovan Ezeiruaku is coming off a hip labrum surgery and will miss most of the offseason program. He will be moving to OLB this season, but his productivity remains to be seen.

Dallas has been here before. Premium picks, documented defensive needs, and a front office that left the draft with picks that had nothing to do with their roster needs.

The 2023 blueprint

In the 2023 Draft, the Cowboys sat at pick No. 26 with run defense and pass rush as the two documented gaps. They took Mazi Smith, a nose tackle out of Michigan, whose workout numbers never showed up on film. By 2024, his PFF grade sat at 34.8, 207th out of 219 qualifying defensive tackles. Dallas eventually convinced the New York Jets last season to take him in a trade just to get off the contract.

The rest of that class matched. Luke Schoonmaker went in the second round at tight end despite the position not being a genuine need. Viliami Fehoko never cracked the depth chart. Deuce Vaughn and Jalen Brooks were cut last preseason. The Landry Hat called it outright “drafting malpractice,” noting that Dallas reached for a tight end who was often injured in college.

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The easy read is that Dallas just got unlucky. The 2023 Draft class never amounted to much for Dallas, and Smith was a reasonable projection at the time who never developed into his first-round hype. Dallas knew they needed pass rush and run defense, and opted for a nose tackle they liked in workouts, and spent two years waiting on production that never came. But 2023 didn’t start this. It has been a growing pattern at The Star.

Back in 2017, Dallas needed a pass rusher and took Taco Charlton in the first round. Four career sacks across two seasons, and he was out. In 2019, Trysten Hill went in the second round, got suspended for punching an opponent mid-game, and got released in 2022 without ever making an impact. Kelvin Joseph, drafted in 2021 to address cornerback, was traded for pennies and later cut entirely.

It’s not a scouting failure across the board that we’re seeing here. It’s an organizational habit of betting on projection over fit, losing the bet, and running the same play again in 2026.

What ‘draft pure’ actually means

Dallas doesn’t draft recklessly. They drift toward players that feel exciting, at positions that feel premium, and then call it trusting the board. And it’s worked before. In 1990, right when the dynasty was taking shape, Dallas was at pick No. 17 and waiting for a linebacker. They didn’t get one, but got Emmitt Smith instead. Jerry Jones’ offensive gamble (when they needed defense) paid off by bringing him the league’s all-time leading rusher. But old success stories tend to blind you to mistakes.

“Draft pure” sounds like a process. Inside The Star, it’s the permission structure for taking the exciting player over the necessary one. It sent them to Charlton over a proven rusher. It produced Smith at 26 when starting linebackers were still on the board. Follow that logic far enough, and you end up taking a receiver at No. 12 with a defense that ranked last in the league.

Anthony Hill Jr., a 2x All-American linebacker out of Texas, is projected to go late in the first round or early in the second. Dallas took him out to a private dinner before the Texas Pro Day, and the interest in him is very real. But with their picks likely too early for Hill, and no second-round pick to bridge the gap, Dallas might have to trade down to land him.

If they don’t, and pick 20 goes to a receiver or another offensive piece instead, that choice says everything about whether this front office actually learned anything from 2023. They’ve been at this exact decision before, and Brian Schottenheimer has already told us which way he’s leaning.

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