Dallas Cowboys Mock Draft: Dallas trades back, collects Earl Thomas
By Reid Hanson
D.J. Moore, WR, Maryland
The Dallas Cowboys have been planning something like this for a while. With an expected run on quarterbacks in the top-15 of the draft, players like D.J. Moore are expected to fall. Courtland Sutton is the first guy off the board and Dallas will have their pick of Calvin Ridley and D.J. Moore when they go on the clock at pick 19.
Mike McGlinchey, Harold Landry, and Isaiah Wynn are all gone leaving Vita Vea, KVE, Taven Bryan, Conner Williams and Will Hernandez on the board. With so many viable options, the Cowboys will try to trade back a few spots. The goal is to pick up an extra third rounder and try to package and flip it into a certain veteran safety they’ve been linked to for quite a while.
So the Dallas Cowboys trade back to spot 23. New England, rich with draft capital, is eager to move up and secure an offensive tackle. So they send their third rounder (the appropriate value of dropping back four spots). When Dallas goes on the clock, they have D.J. Moore waiting for them.
Everyone in Cowboys Nation knows who D.J. Moore is at this point so I’m not going to regurgitate the same information we’ve been reading/seeing for the past four months. But it is worth pointing out, even in a worst case scenario; Moore can be a Day 1 contributor by running a handful of his specialty routes he perfected in college.
He has the ability to break a high percentage short pass for a touchdown at any given time and shows attention to detail in some of his route running. He’s going to be a starter very soon and with an impressive catch radius, he should fit this offense quite well and become one of Dak Prescott’s favorite targets.