5 Reasons Tank Carder is Perfect for the Dallas Cowboys
As Dallas Cowboys Owner and GM Jerry Jones, Head Coach Jason Garrett, and the rest of the Cowboy’s draft personnel begin preparing their ‘Draft Board’ for the 2012 NFL Draft, many of our readers are curious about specific college prospects. Many of the emails in the last couple weeks were about Texas Christian University’s Rose Bowl Defensive MVP Tank Carder. Here are five reasons Tank would make an excellent Dallas Cowboy:
1. Jason Garrett is building a team of the ‘Right Kind of Guys’. Tank Carder is the RKOG. If you don’t know Tank’s full story, you need to read it at ESPN. (How many of you knew that Tank was a competitive BMXer when he was a kid?). The story is from 2009, but it tells about how Carder almost died in a car accident, and how they thought he might be confined to a wheelchair. It also explains his slow return to the football field: forbidden from playing all contact-sports by his Doctor, Tank agreed to play kicker until he was cleared for physical contact.
In addition to that triumph, Tank Carder has a high football IQ, a great work ethic, and he loves football passionately.
You want competitive drive and desire? He has that too. Ceck out his response in the ESPN article to his mother’s question, “What are you going to do if you can’t ever walk again?” He answered, “Well, I guess I will have to join the Wheelchair Olympics.”
2. The Cowboys need depth at ILB, but they are not desperate for someone to come in and play a ton of snaps. With Sean Lee, Bruce Carter, and recently signed Dan Connor already ahead of any rookie on the depth chart, they can afford to look for depth in the later rounds.
3. Tank Carder has the physical skills to play ILB in the nickel package and/or obvious passing downs. He is extremely agile and fluid in pass coverage for a player of his size.
Carder is pretty good in run support. When you watch the film, Carder has the vision of a running back. He sees tiny creases in the pile of blockers and defenders in front of him, picks his spot, jets through the fray, and comes out the other side to meet the ball carrier.
4. Even if Carder could not get on the field in the nickel package immediately, he contribute on opening day by playing on the special teams coverage units. Many prognosticators are predicting that Carder will be a stand-out on special teams. He certainly has the mentality to cover kicks.
5. Tank Carder would be an instant fan favorite. He is a local boy who overcame all the odds to play for the Dallas Cowboys (better than Rocky or Rudy). The Cowboys would sell more Carder jerseys than any other rookie ever drafted after the 1st round. No one would suggest that Jerry Jones would make a personnel decision based on marketing or publicity considerations, but you don’t get to be a billionaire by ignoring the obvious potential of someone with a story like Tank Carder.
It is not easy to get a definitive sense of Carder’s value relative to other ILB prospects. Some mock drafts have him going in the 3rd round, but others don’t have him going until the 6th or 7th. Some analysts have him rated in the top 10 ILB’s in the nation, while other ‘experts’ rate him around 25th.
If Tank falls to the 4th round, and the Cowboys haven’t drafted an ILB, it wouldn’t be surprising if he ended up wearing the Star in 2012. He has the potential to become a solid back-up to Lee and Carter, the Cowboys may still have the need for depth, and it would make an incredible story.
In an era when so many of the elite college athletes are less than ‘high-character’ guys and we hear about fisticuffs at nightclubs, exorbitant and unpaid jewelry bills, marijuana arrests, accusations of sexual impropriety, selling memorabilia for services, shenanigans at strip clubs, etc., it is refreshing to see a prospect that is an old-fashioned good American kid.
Tank Carder would make a great Dallas Cowboy.
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