Cowboys NFL Draft Behind the Scenes - And The 'Virtual' MVP
FRISCO - The Dallas Cowboys 2020 NFL Draft class, deemed by owner Jerry Jones the franchise’s finest in 15 years, was orchestrated by a small army of behind-the-scenes heroes.
You’ve heard of matriarch Gene Jones and daughter Charlotte Jones-Anderson. It was the ladies of the family who demanded that during this unique COVID-19 Draft bosses Jerry and Stephen be anchored safety and separately.
That’s how Stephen landed at a family getaway lake house and how Jerry ended up aboard his $250 million yacht, floating somewhere between Miami and the Bahamas.
“This situation may bring out the best in me,” seafaring Jerry said. “Moby Dick out there to the right … (it) just clears your head.”
Cowboys IT brain Matthew Messick and staff deserves acclaim, too, same as every scout, coach and staffer. But to those in the know?
Will McClay,” said Stephen, “is the MVP.”
For years inside the Cowboys front office, McClay (with the official title of “Vice President of Player Personnel”) has truly been “The Unifier” for his ability to honor and balance the personnel input of the Joneses, the scouts and the coaches. That was true when Jason Garrett (who wielded great power) was here. And it’s true now with a new head coach in Mike McCarthy, who spent 13 years in Green Bay with nary a personnel vote.
“It’s a great class,” McCarthy reflected. “It was great the way it fell.”
That is in part due to luck - or “serendipity,” as another former Cowboys coach, Jimmy Johnson, prefer it be called. But even when Dallas stumbled upon the opportunity to take its sixth-ranked player with the 17th-overall pick, somebody had to be at the core of the decision to take Oklahoma receiver CeeDee Lamb.
Officially, that's "the GM, Jerry Jones,'' McClay said deferentially, and it's true. The owner, president and GM of the Cowboys is Jerry, and as McClay described the weekend's exchanges via Cisco WebEx videoconferencing:
"Our job is to present the good, the bad, the ugly on every player. Jerry asks for the input. Then he says, 'Here's what we're gonna do. Everybody good with that? Speak now or forever hold your peace!'''
There remain silly notions about Jerry making unilateral decisions; the reports that the coronavirus crisis would mean Jerry would be “home alone” and drafting as a “lone wolf” were insultingly moronic.
Meanwhile, the notion that this draft went well due to McCarthy’s singular influence is sadly naive; McClay meshed with the new coach beautifully but also noted, "No, there was no change in approach'' from previous years in terms of the organizational structure. So while McCarthy had input in every single selection - his first-person views led directly to the Day 3 selections of center Tyler Bialasz and QB Ben DiNucci (both prospects share back-home ties with McCarthy) - this was a stay-true-to-the-board effort.
And guess who builds the Dallas Cowboys’ board?
The Joneses run things, yes. And McCarthy's job is to offer a blueprint of the sort of players he wants while at the same time freeing the scouting staff to "pick players over scheme,'' something McClay says is all too rare in the NFL.
But the consensus-builder? That somebody is McClay - “The Unifier” bold enough to also be “The Decider.”
It is true that Jerry got the final word. Three other Cowboys staffers, Todd Williams (Stephen's right-hand man in football ops), Chris Hall (college scouting coordinator) and McClay, had literal "buttons'' to push to submit picks. The way Dallas ran things this year mirrored previous Aprils, when Hall would take Jerry's directive and phone it into NFL Draft headquarters, to a table occupied by staffer Robert Blackwell.
The only difference: This year, Hall physically pushed the button. (With McClay and Williams in possession of those just-in-case buttons.)
"The IT guys were phenomenal,'' said McClay, who hunkered down at his Coppell home with a trio of newly-installed giant TVs. "Obviously there were concerns about bugs or what could go wrong. But managing it all ... they were the MVPs of the whole thing.''
The only thing the tech wizards couldn't solve?
"The heat of those TVs beating down on me,'' McClay joked. "My electric bill this month is gonna be really high.''
The rewards figure to be high, too. The virtual nature of this draft lessened the ability of an assistant coach to even figuratively “pound on the table” for a pet cat. “Homework” being accomplished hurriedly in 18 minutes? No; the value was (and will always be) in what McClay and staff have worked the last 18 months to accomplish.
And so in Round 2 they drafted off the board, a top-20 talent in Alabama cornerback Trevon Diggs tumbling to them at 51. They claim Oklahoma defensive tackle Neville Gallimore, snagged at 82, was a consideration to be taken at 51. (Sources suggest that the Gallimore grade really, truly mirrored the Diggs grade.) They are raving about each and every selection.
No “30 Visits.” No physicals. No Pro Days.
”Seamless,” Stephen termed the shelter-at-home Cowboys process.
That's scouting.
One source told me, "This was a scout's draft.'' (Said McClay: "Our area scouts are the 'GM's' of their areas, specifically mentioning the "leadership'' of Lionel Vital, Mitch La Point, Chris Hall, and Drew Fabianich). And so when Jerry says this might be one of the best drafts of the Jones era, it becomes obvious as to why.
McClay, Stephen said, revealing that other franchises tried to get the draft date moved back, “embraced this. ... Given the unique challenges, somebody had to quickly and efficiently bring together the coaching, scouting and management ... Will jumped in with both feet and never blinked. He was ready to roll.
"Will, with his leadership with our scouting staff, was off the charts. Will McClay is the MVP.''
McClay is frequently the subject of speculation when it comes to GM openings in other NFL cities. We've discussed this with him often. But he has family ties in Dallas, and a strong bond with the Jones family as well. He wants to help Jerry Jones win a Super Bowl ... just as he just helped Jerry Jones win an NFL Draft.
"We did,'' McClay said in a wide-ranging 105.3 Th Fan visit speaking of the Cowboys weekend, "have a lot of fist-bumps and high-fives. But virtual ones.''
