2013 Cowboys Draft: Workouts & Pre-Draft Visits Per 4/1/13

Each NFL team can bring in up to 30 draft-eligible players for pre-draft visits from across the country over the next few weeks. Back in the good old days, many teams released the names of their visitors prior to the draft. These days, teams don't volunteer that information anymore, which means we have to pick up that info from whatever sources we can. Having said that, here's an ongoing list of visits and workouts that we'll keep updated between now and the start of the draft.

Local Prospects invited for "Dallas Days"

In addition to the national prospects, each team can bring in as many 'local' prospects as they like. A player is considered a local prospect if he went to high school or college in a tighly defined area around an NFL team's home base, or if he was born there or his parents live there.

For the Cowboys that area encompasses most of the Dallas/Fort Wort Metro area and is defined as stretching from Sanctuary in the West to Princeton in the East, and from Prosper in the North to Glenn Heights in the South. SMU and TCU are the two local colleges in the area from which the Cowboys are allowed to invite as many prospects as they want, and there have been reports of 50+ players invited for these "Dallas Days". We'll probably never be able to pin down all those names, but here's an overview of what we know so far:

Just like with the list of national prospects, it's too early to divine any meaning from this short list of local prospects just yet. Some other Top-200 players who qualify for "Dallas Days" are OLB Damontre Moore (Texas A&M), WR Marquise Goodwin (Texas), RB Stepfan Taylor (Stanford) and FB Zach Line (SMU). We'll keep a special eye out for those prospects as the list fills up.

National Invites

Please go here for an Updated List

This early and abbreviated list is top heavy in offensive linemen and safeties. At safety, the Cowboys have invited what are arguably the top three prospects at the position. For the OL, they have the top guard, the top RT prospect and a promising prospect. No word yet on whether Jonathan Cooper will get an invite, but it is still early in the process, and this list of invites is bound to fill up over the coming days.

Overall though, this list suggests the Cowboys are looking at offensive linemen and safeties in the first two rounds, and looking at running backs and linebackers in the later rounds, which sounds like a plan. Noticeable by their lack of absence are any defensive linemen - so far.

As we noted earlier this year, these national visits have been a pretty good indicator of which players and which positions the Cowboys were going to select in the ensuing draft:

• The top picks in six of the last seven drafts - Bobby Carpenter, Anthony Spencer, Felix Jones, Jason Williams, Dez Bryant and Tyron Smith - all visited Valley Ranch as part of the Cowboys' pre-draft visits. That run came to an end last year when Morris Claiborne became the first Cowboys top pick since DeMarcus Ware in 2005 to not be invited to Valley Ranch prior to the Draft.
• Over the last five years, the positions with the highest number of invited players has also been a good indicator for the Cowboys' draft plans

Special thanks once again to BTB-member sgitr, who has been a great help in tracking down these names again this year.