The Cowboys' Draft.

I still haven't watched the majority of the Draft.  I will, but wanted to go ahead and post some thoughts.

Here's the deal.  From everything I've heard, the Cowboys' scouting department loved Shariff Floyd.  He fell to them at 18.  A good organization snaps him up.  If you instead get bowled over by an offer (like SF at 31 and their 2014 R1 pick), you do it.  If, however, you get a ho-hum offer, you turn it down and take the player.  The draft pick value chart is not hard and fast, but it agrees with me in this case that you didn't get value.  Then, at 31, you pick a player you could have picked later, again giving up value.  If you constantly spend your $1 on someone with an $.80 value, eventually you can't make that up, no matter how well your scouting department does.  If your scouting department ALSO struggles (and/or you ignore their advice), you're in too deep of a hole to recover.

We've all seen the Mel Kiper criticisms.  But, what he lacks in an eye for talent (he seems to just filter information instead of making his own judgments, although he does this incredibly well), he makes up for by understanding how to work a draft.  If you can get the Honey Badger in the 3rd round, you CAN'T take him in the 1st, no matter how much you love him, Jon Gruden.  It doesn't matter how good he is, because now you're using your 3rd round pick on someone other than him instead of your 1st round pick on someone other than him.