Dallas Cowboys 7-Round Mock Draft: Dak Prescott unsigned and tagged

Round 4, Pick 99

SAF Caden Sterns

6-foot-1, 207 lbs

The Dallas Cowboys’ wishes come true when a safety they like falls to them at Pick 99.

With Xavier Woods gone in free agency, Dallas is in the market for a replacement at free safety. Sterns should be able to take that role right away.

The former 5-star recruit is athletic and rangy but fairly one-dimensional which means he’s sure to fall in the draft. Sterns is built for the centerfield role and doesn’t offer a whole lot more. He’s terrible in man coverage and his hips and change of direction are exposed when playing closer to the line.

But he tracks the ball well and can work sideline to sideline as a deep safety in Dallas’ single high Cover 3. Sterns has a forced incompletion rate of 15% and can generally be trusted to be the last line of defense.

With all of that said, Sterns can line up in other areas if you really need him to. Last season he played 315 snaps as the deep safety, 61 in the box, and 104 as slot corner. Again, you don’t want him in man coverage against athletic players but he should be fine against non-explosive TEs. And as long as the Dallas Cowboys disguise the coverage a little, he shouldn’t be exposed when playing up close.

But again- he’s primarily a deep safety.