Where do our Cowboys come from? A Statistical Analysis

by BoysSB2011! on Sep 8, 2011 9:47 PM CDT

Just thought I'd do an analysis of where our 53 players come from. Note: These are players on our roster as of the first official day of the NFL season (Thursday night).

41 of our 53 Cowboys are original Cowboys…they have never been befouled by playing for another franchise. 12 came to the Cowboys as free agents (and the other 12 are fortunate to have the honor to play for our Cowboys). I like that so many of our players are steeped in the Cowboys way.

13 of our players (24.5%) were brought into the organization by Jason Garrett, another 13 players are holdovers from the Parcells area, and 37 (51 percent) were brought into the organization by Wade Phillips, whether as draft picks, free agents, or undrafted free agents.

Cowboys by round:

1st Round – Nine Cowboys were selected in the first round.

2nd Round – Shockingly, only two Cowboys were second round picks: Sean Lee and Martellus Bennett. (Ideally, Carter will be a third when he returns).

3rd Round – Five Cowboys were selected in third round, although only three by the Cowboys (Dockery and Robinson were picked by other teams).

4th Round – Seven Cowboys were selected in the fourth round…James, Free, Choice, Arkin, Butler…Cowboys do well in the 4th round. (If only they did as well in the 2nd!)

5th Round – Four Cowboys were fifth round picks.

6th Round – Three Cowboys were sixth round picks.

7th Round – Six Cowboys were seventh round picks. (Although this is somewhat misleading because there are more picks in the 7th round than any other).

UDFA – Seventeen Cowboys (1/3rd) were undrafted free agents.

I’m not sure that having 33% of a team be comprised of undrafted free agents is unusual in the NFL, and to be sure the Cowboys have had some great finds in free agency…Romo, Austin, etc. But what is truly an indictment of our personnel department is that we only have five players on our roster who were drafted by the Cowboys in the second and third rounds combined…that’s just stunning, and I’m afraid speaks to the overall talent level on this team.

Cowboys by conference:

Big 12 – 9 Cowboys

Pac 10 – 7 Cowboys

SEC – 7 Cowboys

ACC – 6 Cowboys

Big 10 – 5 Cowboys

MAC – 4 Cowboys

Big East – 2 Cowboys

Conference USA – 2 Cowboys

Missouri Valley – 2 Cowboys

Sun Belt – 2 Cowboys

SWAC – 2 Cowboys

WAC – 2 Cowboys

1 Each - Colonial Athletic, Great Northwest, Northeast, Ohio Valley

Not surprisingly, the most Cowboys come from the Big 12. It shows you the poor quality of the Big East that the Cowboys have more players from the MAC. No more than any two Cowboys are from one university.Toledo, Texas A&M, LSU, Illinois, North Carolina, and Virginia have two players each.

No Cowboys went to Georgia, Florida, or Nebraska.

Trivia question: More Cowboys have been drafted from what school than any other in Cowboys history? (Answer at bottom).

Summary:

First Name	Last Name	Original Cowboy	Brought Into Org By	Round Selected	Conference
Alex	Albright	Y	Garrett	UDFA	Big East
David	Arkin	Y	Garrett	4	Missouri Valley
Miles	Austin	Y	Parcells	UDFA	Northeast
Dan	Bailey	Y	Garrett	UDFA	Big 12
Alan	Ball	Y	Parcells	7	Big 10
Martellus	Bennett	Y	Phillips	2	Big 12
Josh	Brent	Y	Phillips	7	Big 10
Keith	Brooking	N	Phillips	1	ACC
Dez	Bryant	Y	Phillips	1	Big 12
David	Buehler	Y	Phillips	5	Pac 10
Victor	Butler	Y	Phillips	4	Pac 10
Tashard	Choice	Y	Phillips	4	Pac 10
Barry	Church	Y	Phillips	UDFA	MAC
Kenyon	Coleman	N	Garrett	5	Pac 10
Phil	Costa	Y	Phillips	UDFA	ACC
Derrick	Dockery	N	Garrett	3	Big 12
Abram	Elam	Y	Garrett	UDFA	MAC
Doug	Free	Y	Phillips	4	MAC
Clifton	Geathers	N	Phillips	6	SEC
Dwayne	Harris	Y	Garrett	6	Conference USA
Jason	Hatcher	Y	Parcells	3	SWAC
Jesse	Holley	Y	Phillips	UDFA	ACC
Bradie	James	Y	Parcells	4	SEC
Mike	Jenkins	Y	Phillips	1	Big East
Felix	Jones	Y	Phillips	1	Big 12
Jon	Kitna	N	Phillips	UDFA	Great Northwest
Kyle	Kosier	N	Parcells	7	Pac 10
Kevin	Kowalski	Y	Garrett	UDFA	MAC
LP	Ladouceur	N	Parcells	UDFA	Pac 10
Sean	Lee	Y	Phillips	2	Big 10
Sean	Lissemore	Y	Phillips	7	Colonial Athletic
Matt	McBriar	N	Parcells	UDFA	WAC
Bryan	McCann	Y	Phillips	UDFA	Conference USA
Danny	McCray	Y	Phillips	UDFA	SEC
Stephen	McGee	Y	Phillips	4	Big 12
DeMarco	Murray	Y	Garrett	3	Big 12
Bill	Nagy	y	Garrett	7	Big 10
Terence	Newman	Y	Parcells	1	Big 12
Kevin	Ogletree	Y	Phillips	UDFA	ACC
Jeremy	Parnell	N	Phillips	UDFA	SEC
John	Phillips	Y	Phillips	6	ACC
Jay	Ratliff	Y	Parcells	7	SEC
Laurent	Robinson	N	Garrett	3	Missouri Valley
Tony	Romo	Y	Parcells	UDFA	Ohio Valley
Martin	Rucker	N	Phillips	4	Big 12
Orlando	Scandrick	Y	Phillips	5	WAC
Gerald	Sensabaugh	N	Phillips	5	ACC
Tyron	Smith	Y	Garrett	1	Pac 10
Marcus	Spears	Y	Parcells	1	SEC
Anthony	Spencer	Y	Parcells	1	Big 10
Phillip	Tanner	Y	Garrett	UDFA	Sun Belt
DeMarcus	Ware	Y	Parcells	1	Sun Belt
Jason	Witten	Y	Parcells	3	SEC

Trivia Answer: Tennessee

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Comments

NIce post, Boys

Thanks for taking the time to get all this info together. A few clarifications:

There are also two Cowboys from Georgia Tech (Brooking and Choice), Oklahoma State (Bailey and Bryant) and USC (Smith and Buehler)

There are actually 3 Cowboys from LSU (Spears, McCray, and James) making it the most represented school on the Dallas roster.

If you count Bruce Carter (since he’s not on the 53 man roster right now) there are 3 Cowboys from North Carolina (Carter, Sensabaugh, Holley)

I guess while i’m at it I might as well mention that if the Reserve-Non Football injury list AND the practice squad is included, then there is a third player from both Georgia Tech (Mario Butler), and Oklahoma State (Orie Lemon), a second player from UCLA (Kai Forbath to go along with Coleman) and one player from Georgia (Shaun Chapas).

Hope to hear more from you!

by nateman48 on Sep 9, 2011 1:23 AM CDT reply actions

Wombs. 100% of them.

Cry 'Havoc!'

by tanstaafl on Sep 9, 2011 9:15 AM CDT reply actions 1 recs

Really interesting stuff

Rec’d

"There are no traffic jams along the extra mile."- Roger Staubach
Pet Cat of 2011- Barry Church!

by Rat-Pack on Sep 9, 2011 9:19 AM CDT reply actions

Miss Representation

Is it really an indictment of our scouting that we only have five players drafted in the second and third rounds? If our scouting department was really so poor, then you wouldn’t expect the see so many fourth and seventh round picks make the team.

If you really wanted to get a good idea of how good our scouting was you would have to compare the number of successful draft picks out of our total draft picks and compare that to other teams’ success rate. And you’d have to control for where everyone was selected.

Also, there are a ton of UDFA in the league because a team drafts an average of 7 players a year, while they can sign a very high number of UDFAs and take a look at them. Furthermore, the success rate of later round picks is so poor that the sheer number of UDFAs more than makes up for their lower success rate. Also, UDFAs are cheap so you can afford more of them.

by niceville56 on Sep 9, 2011 1:27 PM CDT reply actions

but yet

and I have made this point before…Dallas has an UDFA snapping the Ball to a UDFA, who can either hand it off to(Tanner) or pass it to a UDFA…..

How many top ten Offenses could say that?…..

Here’s a theoretical play from 2010: Snap. Tony takes 7 step drop. Tony looks left at Miles, who is doubled, and looks right to where Roy Williams should be…but instead sees Colombo on his back and a Defensive End foaming at the mouth jumping over Marc’s carcass. Tony proceeds to run like hell and look for Witten
-by CotySaxman on Jul 11, 2011 7:50 AM PDT

Am I the most optimistic Cowboys fan in the World? Yes, due to an "unfortunate accident" to the previous holder of the title.

by I am Ironman!!! on Sep 9, 2011 9:51 PM CDT up reply actions

Interesting

Here’s what I think is missing;

If you were to look at the Tuna and Phillips/Ciskowski/Jerry periods and juxtapose them, how have they compared? My of the cuff observation says that Dallas has not stocked the chest well enough since Tuna left and that the period of time once the core group of Tuna-acquired players begins to age out, we will be in a situation where we lack enough top-flight players to compete (Free Agency acquisitions notwithstanding).

But again, that’s simply a guess.

"Other than that, Mrs. Lincoln, how was the play?"

by 5Blings on Sep 10, 2011 11:56 AM CDT reply actions