Dallas Cowboys 7-Round Mock Draft: Trade Downs and Double Ups
Dallas Cowboys 3rd Round, Pick 100
Tyler Shelvin, DT, LSU
Picks Traded: TEN (99) for DAL(100 and 205)
In a previous mock draft, I had the Cowboys taking Shelvin with a third-round pick I received in a trade. We are experiencing a deja-vu as Shelvin lands with the Cowboys after the original pick was traded away to another team. (I guess he is also the second LSU player in this mock so there’s that as well)
After Shelvin opted out of the 2020 season and had a poor pro day, you could make the point that pick 100 is too early for the former LSU Tiger. With 48 total tackles, 15 solo, 4.5 tackles for loss, and 1.5 sacks for his career… Wow I’m doing a really poor job of selling this pick. Let’s do this again!
Shelvin is a 6-foot-2, 350 pound defensive tackle hailing from Lafayette, Louisiana. As a big dude with marginal athletic ability, his job was quite simple in the well-known Ed Orgeron Tite front defenses.
These defenses have traditionally been good against the run because the nose tackles are willingly taking on double teams to allow the edge defenders and other interior defensive linemen the opportunity to leverage the gap and make a tackle.
For reference, here were the 2019 stats of the interior defensive linemen starting adjacent to Shelvin:
Shelvin: 39 total, 13 solo, 3 tackles for loss, 2 pass deflections
Rashard Lawrence: 28 total, 11 solo, 6 tackles for loss, 3 pass deflections, 2.5 sacks
Glen Logan: 20 total, 5 solo, 2.5 tackles for loss, 2 pass deflections, 1.5 sacks
The numbers collectively aren’t great but it is the expectation when you line up this way. If anything, with Shelvin usually taking on double teams, him leading these three in tackles is a huge plus. It just confirms our priors that Shelvin can be an asset to a team that had a historically bad run defense last season.
He displays solid upfield burst because he is good at keying the ball and has a good motor that allows him to initiate contact at the point of attack even with marginal explosiveness. He has the play strength, pad level, and patience to hold double teams on runs. One-on-one, he can leverage the gap and displays enough upper body strength to disengage from interior linemen.
He doesn’t display much upside as a pass rusher because of his marginal explosiveness leaving him unable to turn speed into power, but he does eat up double teams for his teammates to rush in free. Even though Quinn runs a 1-gapping scheme, he does allow his interior linemen to two-gap. Shelvin would be the perfect lineman for such situations.
The free agents the Cowboys signed on the interior have a good motor and display good play strength to leverage gaps and disengage from blockers. Would adding Shelvin to that group be iron sharpening iron?