The Dallas Cowboys have done fairly well in the first four rounds of the draft since 2010, even if that generalization glosses over their struggles in the second round. Still, from 2010-25, 48 of the 67 players (71.6%) they drafted in the first four rounds developed into a starter (a player who started at least eight games in at least one season, be it with the team that drafted him or with another team). Those 71.6% rank sixth among all teams in the NFL over the period, even if it’s not far off the NFL average of 67.3%, but that is still a significant enough 1.23 standard deviation.
But today we’re going to focus on what happens in the last three rounds of the draft, where the odds of landing a starter get progressively lower, as the table below illustrates, summarized for all 32 teams in the league.
**Starters by round, 2010-2025 Drafts**
**Round 1**
**Round 2**
**Round 3**
**Round 4**
**Round 5**
**Round 6**
**Round 7**
**Rounds 5-7**
Players drafted
510
510
596
592
598
642
653
1,893
o/w Starters
469
387
351
278
202
140
98
440
**In %**
**92%**
**76%**
**59%**
**47%**
**34%**
**22%**
**15%**
**23%**
You may not have known the exact percentages, but you would very likely have intuitively assumed a similar decline across the rounds.
Since 2010, only 23.1% of the prospects drafted in rounds 5-7 of the draft have become starters. That‘s slightly less than a quarter of all players taken in rounds 5-7 of the draft that turn into starters for at least one season.
Over the same period, the Cowboys have drafted 66 players in rounds 5-7 of the draft. 12 of those picks (18.2%) eventually turned into starters which, ranks them 26th in the league and is quite a significant -2.04 standard deviation.
Of course, there’s always the chance that last year’s late-rounders like LB Shemar Stewart, RB Jaydon Blue, or DT Jay Toia could eventually emerge as starters, but the Cowboys recent track record with these late picks makes this a long shot unless there are devastating injuries to the roster.
You could always argue that you get your starters in the first three or four rounds, and that the later rounds are where you get your bottom-of-the roster guys, your backups, and your special teams regulars. And if one of them turns into a starter, that’s simply a bonus you’re happy to pocket.
And if you’ve been a Cowboys fan long enough, perhaps you even buy into that line of thinking. Or you could argue that the Cowboys are already so stacked with talent that barring injury, it’s almost impossible for late-round picks to become starters. Granted, even dyed-in-blue Cowboys fans probably don’t think that right now.
And this late-round futility isn’t just a recent thing. I chose 2010 as the starting point for this analysis to have a solid statistical base and not to risk overreacting to a statistical blip.
Where the Cowboys have an 18.2% success rate for their late round starters, other teams are much more successful. I hate, hate, hate that the 49ers and Eagles are ranked #1 and #3 in the league with a success rate of 34.2% and 31.3% respectively, and that even the Commanders - run by Dan Snyder until 2023 - rank in the Top 10 with 27.1%. The freaking Commanders!
So, who said you can’t go looking for starters in the last three rounds of the draft? Here’s how the Cowboys compare to the other 31 teams in the league:
**Success rate for Round 5-7 picks, 2010-2025**
**Rank**
**Team**
**Picks**
**Starters**
**Success**
**rate**
**Rank**
**Team**
**Picks**
**Starters**
**Success**
**rate**
**Rank**
**Team**
**Picks**
**Starters**
**Success**
**rate**
1
**SFO**
73
25
34.2%
12
**LAR**
78
20
25.6%
23
**ATL**
47
9
19.1%
2
**BAL**
54
17
31.5%
13
**LAC**
55
14
25.5%
24
**DEN**
58
11
19.0%
3
**PHI**
64
20
31.3%
14
**LVR**
56
14
25.0%
25
**JAX**
58
11
19.0%
4
**CHI**
52
16
30.8%
15
**CAR**
49
12
24.5%
26
**DAL**
66
12
18.2%
5
**NYJ**
51
15
29.4%
16
**MIA**
57
13
22.8%
27
**NOR**
40
7
17.5%
6
**SEA**
72
21
29.2%
17
**DET**
53
12
22.6%
28
**BUF**
65
11
16.9%
7
**TAM**
49
14
28.6%
18
**GNB**
78
17
21.8%
29
**PIT**
58
9
15.5%
8
**WAS**
70
19
27.1%
19
**NWE**
65
14
21.5%
30
**CIN**
61
9
14.8%
9
**KAN**
49
13
26.5%
20
**MIN**
84
18
21.4%
31
**ARI**
57
8
14.0%
10
**HOU**
54
14
25.9%
21
**CLE**
52
11
21.2%
32
**TEN**
53
7
13.2%
11
**IND**
66
17
25.8%
22
**NYG**
49
10
20.4%
Despite all of that, there’s also some “good” news: the Cowboys are not the worst team in the league and that’s already something these days.
Additionally, there’s always the risk that we’re making a mountain out of a statistical mole hill (_\*Stephen Jones nodding vigorously in approval\*_). And it’s true that just three extra starters would rank the Cowboys 17th overall, making them a perfectly average team.
Also, the issue seems to be largely driven by the fifth round, where the Cowboys rank 32nd in the league, while in the sixth they rank very close to the average at 13th. There’s a statistical oddity in the 7th, where the Cowboys are ranked 14th, but are slightly below league average with their four starters. And that’s because while 21 teams have gotten less than four starters out of the round, three teams dominate the top of the seventh round: The Eagles with 10 (!) starters, and the 49ers and Colts with eight each.
But the average rankings do not lessen the Cowboys’ underperformance against the top teams in those rounds. Applying the late-round success rates of the 49ers (34.2%) or Eagles (31.3%) to the Cowboys 66 late-round picks would generate 11 or nine additional starters for the Cowboys on top of the 12 they already have. And that has got to leave you wondering whether the Cowboys consistently fall asleep in the last three rounds of the draft. At the very least, you’ve got to wonder whether the Cowboys are doing something fundamentally different (and wrong) than some of the other teams.
And comparing the late-round picks with the undrafted free agents (UDFAs) picked by the Cowboys over the same period makes the Cowboys late-round shenanigans even more baffling: Since 2010, the Cowboys have signed 16 UDFAs that eventually notched at least one starter season, and that’s not even accounting for four kickers, two return specialists (RS in the table below), and two punters that were the primary starters at their positions, but don’t have any official starts on their stat sheet.
Here’s an overview of the 12 starters drafted in rounds 5-7 and the UDFAs signed by the Cowboys over that same time span, with special teams players added for extra emphasis.
**Late-round Draft Picks vs UDFAs, 2010-2025**
**Draft picks**
**UDFAs**
**Year**
**Round**
**Pick**
**Player**
**POS**
**Starter
Seasons**
**Year**
**Player**
**POS**
**Starter
Seasons**
2010
6
179
Sam Young
T
**1**
2010
Barry Church
S
**6**
2010
7
234
Sean Lissemore
DT
**1**
2010
Andrew Sendejo
S
**6**
2012
6
186
James Hanna
TE
**3**
2010
Jermey Parnell
T
**4**
2014
7
254
Terrance Mitchell
DB
**3**
2010
Phil Costa
G/C
**1**
2015
7
246
Geoff Swaim
TE
**5**
2010
Danny McCray
DB
**1**
2016
6
189
Anthony Brown
CB
**6**
2012
Ronald Leary
LG
**5**
2017
6
191
Xavier Woods
S
**8**
2012
Cole Beasley
WR
**3**
2017
7
239
Noah Brown
WR
**2**
2012
Andre Holmes
WR
**1**
2019
6
213
Donovan Wilson
S
**5**
2013
Jeff Heath
SS
**4**
2019
5
158
Michael Jackson
CB
**3**
2015
La'el Collins
LG
**6**
2021
6
192
Quinton Bohanna
DT
**1**
2017
Cooper Rush
QB
**1**
2022
5
167
DaRon Bland
DB
**3**
2018
Brandon Knight
T
**1**
2022
5
176
Damone Clark
LB
**1**
2019
Luke Gifford
LB
**1**
2020
Terence Steele
RT
**6**
2020
Rico Dowdle
RB
**2**
2022
Markquese Bell
S
**1**
**Special Teams Players**
**Special Teams Players**
2011
6
176
Dwayne Harris
WR/RS
7
2011
Dan Bailey
K
10
2011
Chris Jones
P
7
2011
Kai Forbath
K
5
2015
Lucky Whitehead
WR/RS
2
2018
Brett Maher
K
5
2020
Hunter Niswander
P
1
2022
KaVontae Turpin
WR/RS
4
2023
Brandon Aubrey
K
3
You can debate the merits of including players on the list who got their starter season fully or partly outside of Dallas, but this post is primarily about the acquisition process and not about the retention process. In every case, the Cowboys found talent that would eventually become a starter in the NFL. That in itself is already something.
Now to be fair, the Cowboys have signed 246 UDFAs since 2010, so their overall success rate at finding starters (even including the special teamers) is just 9.8% versus the 18.2% for the late-round picks.
Still, it remains a numbers game, the more UDFAs you sign, the higher the chances that some will stick. Between 2010 and 2022, the Cowboys averaged a little over 16 UDFA signings per year, with highs of 21 in 2012, 24 in 2014, and most recently, 20 in 2022, but never dropping below 13 signings. But the last three years seem different. The team signed 13 UDFAs each in 2023 and 2024, and dropped to 9 signings in 2025. If you’re playing a numbers game, reducing signings is not the right way to go, and it hasn’t been a matter of money, which is unusual in Dallas. The Cowboys have been one of the top-spending teams in the league for a while now on UDFAs.
We’ll see how the number develops this year, I am willing to concede that the last three years might indeed be a statistical blip, but it bears watching.
Beyond these general questions there’s a pattern in the data that throws up even more questions. If you split the data into three sections (four years from 2010-2013, six years from 2014 to 2019, and six years, you get the following player numbers for the UDFAs:
* 2010-2013: 9 players
* 2014-2019: 4 players
* 2020-2025: 4 players
Will McClay took over a VP of Player Personnel in 2014, so that is the most obvious break between 2013 and 2014. So the first question I would ask somebody like Chris Hall, who has been responsible for college scouting before 2014 and still is to this day, is what has changed in the process that has led to this decline in UDFA productivity? Part of that answer will about the talent evaluation process, scheme change, or coaching change, even if nothing here seemed to have changed from Garrett (2009-2019) to McCarthy (2000-20024), though the various coordinator changes may have played a bigger role than we know.
I’ll have a separate post about their UDFA signing process ready in the coming weeks where I may look into these aspects as well, so I won’t dive in further right now.
Same split for the late-round picks, but with a very different outcome:
* 2010-2013: 3 players
* 2014-2019: 6 players
* 2020-2025: 3 players
What caused the success rate to accelerate in 2014-2019 only to decelerate again in 2020-2025? And again, we are looking at the same culprits, but for very different reasons.
* What did Will McClay change to boost the success rate in 2014-2019?
* What changes were made to that process beginning in 2020? And how much was the new coaching regime involved in this?
* Or is all of this just coincidence?
Nothing that we’ve looked at in this post means that late-round picks are worthless, far from it. This year, the Cowboys have four picks in rounds 5 & 7, and they are almost certainly hoping that their string of late-round futility will come to an end. But hoping against hope that whatever you did to rank you 26th in the league will magically turn around your success rate is just foolish.
For the Cowboys, these picks might be put to better use by packaging some of them to trade up in the draft, thus increasing your chances of landing a starter.
* They could package their fourth and fifth with the 12th pick to jump Miami - if Cincinnati is willing to move down - and potentially secure Mansoor Delane, Sonny Styles or any other Big 6 defender falling to No. 10
* Packaging their 92nd and 152nd could move them up about five spots in the third, which doesn’t feel terribly wise.
* But bundling their two fifth-round comp picks could move them all the way to the bottom of the fourth, and that seems like an interesting option.
Or perhaps the Cowboys could trade some of their later-round picks for higher-value future picks. Or consider using them on college special teams standouts if your current kicker or returner or maybe even the punter and long snapper get too expensive. Hint: the four are currently on the books with with a combined cap hit of $16 million.
Maybe even trade those picks for a proven starter from some sucker team that thinks it can beat the odds with a late-round pick and is willing to gamble a starter on that, except don’t trade the picks to teams like the 49ers or Eagles, who actually seem to know how to do just that.
Problem is, teams (and fans) are so invested in the scouting departments, the scouting process, and the NFL draft, that acknowledging the draft as a crap shoot is diametrically opposed to the entire scouting mythology that has grown over time (and the millions invested in it).
Trade your late-round picks for established veterans if your cap strategy allows for it, or use them to trade up in the draft, or trade them for future picks, or draft special teams standouts that allow you to shave millions of dollars in cap space. But don’t just pick players because you have to fill up the roster, you can probably do that just as effectively with UDFAs.
Don’t just sit there in the last three rounds and pick a bunch of players who’ll never amount to anything, just because you have no better idea of what else to do with those picks.
_One final data point for those interested in_ **all** _the nitty gritty details, here’s the draft success by round for the Cowboys and the team-by-team ranking of rounds 1-4._
**Starters drafted by Cowboys, 2010-2025 Drafts**
**Round 1**
**Round 2**
**Round 3**
**Round 4**
**Round 5**
**Round 6**
**Round 7**
**Rounds 5-7**
**Rounds 1-4**
Players drafted
15
15
18
19
18
21
27
66
67
o/w Starters
14
9
16
9
3
5
4
12
48
**Cowboys in %**
**93%**
**60%**
**89%**
**47%**
**17%**
**24%**
**15%**
**18%**
**72%**
NFL in %
92%
76%
59%
47%
34%
22%
15%
23%
67%
Dallas NFL rank
14th
29th
1st
17th
32nd
13th
14th
26th
6
Dallas Std. Dev. vs NFL avg
0.2
**\-1.5**
**2.2**
0.0
**\-1.6**
0.2
0.0
**\-2.0**
**1.2**
**Success rate for Round 1-4 picks, 2010-2025**
**Rank**
**Team**
**Picks**
**Starters**
**Success**
**rate**
**Rank**
**Team**
**Picks**
**Starters**
**Success**
**rate**
**Rank**
**Team**
**Picks**
**Starters**
**Success**
**rate**
1
**TAM**
66
52
78.8%
12
**PHI**
66
46
69.7%
23
**DEN**
69
45
65.2%
2
**BUF**
60
46
76.7%
13
**JAX**
71
49
69.0%
24
**MIN**
66
43
65.2%
3
**ARI**
68
50
73.5%
14
**TEN**
69
47
68.1%
25
**SEA**
74
48
64.9%
4
**LAC**
60
43
71.7%
15
**GNB**
72
49
68.1%
26
**CIN**
79
51
64.6%
5
**MIA**
60
43
71.7%
16
**WAS**
65
44
67.7%
27
**IND**
67
43
64.2%
6
**DAL**
67
48
71.6%
17
**CAR**
63
42
66.7%
28
**BAL**
90
57
63.3%
7
**ATL**
63
45
71.4%
18
**LVR**
78
52
66.7%
29
**NYG**
69
42
60.9%
8
**NOR**
59
42
71.2%
19
**HOU**
71
47
66.2%
30
**NWE**
81
49
60.5%
9
**DET**
69
49
71.0%
20
**KAN**
68
45
66.2%
31
**CHI**
59
33
55.9%
10
**PIT**
68
48
70.6%
21
**LAR**
68
45
66.2%
32
**SFO**
73
40
54.8%
11
**CLE**
83
58
69.9%
22
**NYJ**
67
44
65.7%
See More:
* [Dallas Cowboys Draft](/dallas-cowboys-draft)
* [Dallas Cowboys Roster](/dallas-cowboys-roster)