Put your faith in Mel Kiper Jr., not Russell Wilson, to fix the Dallas Cowboys

No average team runs as high and powerful in the off-season as the Cowboys. A 6-10 record cannot stop people from thinking that Dallas is on the verge of something special. And now we have disparate but significant figures from the NFL, from Seattle to Baltimore – who would be Russell Wilson and Mel Kiper Jr. – reaching out to lend a hand to the team.

In fact, I think what Kiper did (if his prognosis could be reasonably accurate) offers Cowboys more hope, but let’s save his last draft analysis for a moment and focus on the supposedly bigger news from the Seattle quarterback. Something went wrong with Wilson and the Seahawks – something beyond rumors that have never been worth much in the past, anyway – and now Wilson’s agent has listed four teams with which his client would gladly accept an exchange.

These four are the Cowboys, Bears, Saints and Raiders.

(Before anyone got too dizzy with Dallas or any other team winning a future Hall of Fame, keep in mind that Seattle would receive a monstrous blow of about $ 39 million in dead money. That’s several million more than the Eagles in reconstruction soaked up to get rid of Carson Wentz, and nobody sees Seattle as a team starting over.)

Mostly, I’m trying to figure out what kind of list this is. What fuses these four teams?

Saints and Bears need a quarterback. Raiders can, but say they can’t. Cowboys, of course, shouldn’t, but their inability to sign their own means they could.

New Orleans is a proven playoff candidate. The other three go to the playoffs sporadically with indifferent results. Dallas and Chicago are the main markets. New Orleans and Las Vegas do not.

If you just want to enter fantasyland and think about a deal with Dallas, that doesn’t free Cowboys from their quarterback problems. It simply changes them. Wilson’s limit numbers are huge over the next three years, so that doesn’t go away. He’s more experienced, more polished (OK, let’s just say that) BETTER quarterback than Dak Prescott. But it’s not like Seattle was going to give it away for free, even if the Cowboys were willing to change Prescott’s salary cap for Wilson’s. So, what’s the point?

Although we’re seeing crazy things happen to the defenders in 2021, I can’t believe the Seahawks are going to take advantage of the season to get rid of a big, but unfortunate, player.

That’s why Kiper’s analysis is more intriguing for Dallas. It is also historical, and I must admit that I did not know that in 38 years of making simulated drafts, Mel never allowed herself to do business. I didn’t realize that there was a Kiper trade barrier that we hadn’t eliminated, but now we did.

And that freedom allowed him to project five quarterbacks going to Jacksonville, Atlanta, San Francisco, Carolina and New England before the Cowboys made their first selection as No. 10. In case you’re wondering, this is (in order) Trevor Lawrence of Clemson , Zach Wilson of BYU, Justin Fields of Ohio, Mac Jones of Alabama and Trey Lance of North Dakota going to these five clubs.

This allows the Cowboys to grab Alabama’s cornerback Patrick Surtain II with the tenth choice. More than anything, this is what the next two months should be about for Dallas. Whether there are three, four or five quarterbacks chosen in front of them, anything that allows the Dolphins’ three-time Pro Bowler’s son to end up in Dallas playing against former teammate Trevon Diggs is a winner.

We know where Dallas’ needs are and we know that Cowboys don’t like to spend a lot of money on their side. That means keeping a young group of starters, and you have to think that, on paper, Diggs and Surtain would be the best the club has had since Terence Newman and Mike Jenkins were chosen for the Pro Bowl in 2009.

It certainly looks like Diggs and Surtain could enjoy sustained success for longer than Jenkins. Regardless, sometimes you need to keep it simple and copy what’s working elsewhere. And while no one considered the Washington Football Team the model for victory, the division champions can count on five choices in Alabama in the first and second rounds in their defense, from Daron Payne and Jonathan Allen in front of Ryan Anderson and Reuben Foster in linebacker Landon Collins in the cornerback.

When a team plays eight games for the national title over a 12-year period and wins six of them, grabbing champion players when they are available is not the worst idea in the world.

I know that some of you want the Cowboys to get a quarterback at 10 if the Cowboys are unable to sign a long-term contract with Prescott in the coming weeks. Just check out the history of quarterbacks in the first round who are unsure of things like Elway, Aikman and Luck. Let others waste choices and make those mistakes.

I wouldn’t bet a penny on stocks with the idea that Russell Wilson is going to solve the strange Dallas quarterback problems. Just accept the fact that Mel Kiper Jr. is offering a path to the country’s most qualified cornerback to slide to the starting point on the new coordinator Dan Quinn’s depth chart.

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