If the Dallas Cowboys are looking for a blueprint for what they need to accomplish in next month’s draft, all they have to do is flip back to 2005.
Nine years ago, the Cowboys hit it big by selecting four college defensive linemen who combined for 364 starts in Dallas and 11 Pro Bowls.
The Cowboys found four defensive starters going into their first season in their new 3-4 defense under Bill Parcells. Defensive ends DeMarcus Ware and Marcus Spears were first-round selections, end Chris Canty was a fourth-rounder and Dallas used its lone seventh-round pick to draft tackle Jay Ratliff.
Ware started at outside linebacker and became the club’s all time sacks leader with 117, but the likely Hall of Famer will play for Denver in 2014. Ratliff rewarded the Cowboys with four Pro Bowls before an ugly ending to his Dallas career. Spears started more games for the Cowboys than Ratliff, and Canty started every game for Dallas from 2006 to 2008.
Since 2005, the Cowboys have ignored their defensive line for the most part and have put themselves in a tough situation heading into May’s draft. They face the daunting task of rebuilding their defensive line in their second season in a new 4-3 scheme after finishing 2013 with the NFL’s worst defense.
Going into the 2013 season, the Cowboys expected their front four to be Ware, Ratliff, Jason Hatcher and Anthony Spencer. Now, only Spencer is on the roster.
The Cowboys are obviously dialed in on fixing their defensive front. NFL teams are allowed to bring in 30 players for pre-draft visits, and the Cowboys have used about half of their spots on defensive linemen.
The Cowboys need a repeat of 2005, but finding even two defensive starters in one draft is often hard to accomplish.
One of the backbones of any football team is its defensive line, and that has never been more evident than in today’s NFL world of pass-happy offenses.
But the defensive line has been a low priority for the Cowboys since 2005.
The Cowboys failed to plan for the future when building their defensive front.
After the 2012 season, Cowboys owner Jerry Jones called the defensive line a strength despite an aging front four. Dallas didn’t address the unit last off-season in free agency or the draft, forcing Rod Marinelli to use 21 different defensive linemen in 2013 after the front four was hit hard by injuries. The Cowboys were signing a player off the street seemingly every week.
“We were almost bankrupt last year in terms of what we had personnel-wise,” Jones said this off season about the defensive line. “That is certainly an area of need.”
The Cowboys’ strategy since 2005 in regard to building their defensive line has been perplexing, to say the least.
Most look at the departure of the Cowboys’ four projected 2013 defensive line starters as the big reason why the club must focus its attention in the draft this year on the front four.
But consider the big picture before finger-pointing at the recent mass exodus. In the eight drafts since the Cowboys’ big haul in 2005, they’ve selected only five defensive linemen, who started 115 games in Dallas and went to only two Pro Bowls.
In their five drafts from 2007 to 2011, the Cowboys had 40 picks and selected only two defensive linemen. During that same stretch, they also drafted two kickers and two fullbacks.
The good news for the Cowboys this year is they have 11 draft picks - including No. 16 overall - at their disposal. They haven’t had more than eight picks in one year since 2009.
Jones said early this off season that the Cowboys’ defensive line was “compromised” last year because of the injuries. But the Cowboys didn’t put themselves in a good position to compensate for all the injuries with a lack of depth in their front four because of their unwillingness to draft many defensive linemen since 2005.
Jones said he felt like the Cowboys “could be pretty selective before we took a defensive lineman” last year.
“But that just shows you,” Jones added, “that you can be long or feel good about where you are as a team and a position and then very quickly get in a pretty compromised spot relative to injury.”
It’s a spot the Cowboys put themselves in by placing their defensive line on cruise control for almost a decade.
Now they need a repeat of the 2005 draft, but it’s rare to find that kind of production in the same draft class.
Sports, Pages 26 on 04/27/2014