Cowboys Pre-Draft Visits: Defensive Linemen Dominate The Highly-Ranked Invites

NFL teams are allowed 30 official pre-draft visits from draft eligible players. These are the national visits, in addition there are the Dallas Days visits which are separate visits from players that fall within a geographical region around Dallas. Between these two lists of players, you can expect the Cowboys to take several of them in the draft if past drafts are any indication.

The names of some of the official 30 pre-draft visitors have been floating around and one thing is becoming clear, the Cowboys are most definitely looking at the defensive line. And the names are the usual suspects we've been kicking around here for the past month or so. They include Aaron Donald, Timmy Jernigan, Anthony Barr, and Kony Ealy. Those four are prime candidates for the #16 pick. If you look at the Cowboys tendency to pick guys in the first round who have come on a pre-draft visit, and look at the full list of players they are inviting that we know of so far, you probably would start betting heavily that one of those four will be a Cowboy on draft day (unless the Cowboys pull a trade).

The Cowboys are also looking at defensive linemen beyond the first round candidates. Guys like Demarcus Lawrence, Davon Coleman. You can also throw some Dallas Days and private workout names into that mix like Jackson Jeffcoat and Ken Bishop.

Outside of the defensive line position, there are a few highly-ranked guys coming in for a visit, headed by Ryan Shazier, Jason Verrett and Jimmie Ward, though only Shazier would seem like an outside possibility at #16. The rest are likely second round or trade-back picks.

UPDATE

The danger of writing these type of posts in real-time? New names that are added that slightly blow-up your premise. In this case, it's the addition of offensive lineman Zack Martin, who sits at the mid-first-round sweet spot that the Cowboys will be looking at.

Add OT Zack Martin to Cowboys list of pre Draft visitors, along with Jernigan.

— Jeff Cavanaugh (@JC1053) April 14, 2014

END UPDATE

Based on the visits we've seen so far, defensive line is the likely choice for Dallas if they stay at #16. And there are four names prominently heading that list.

Hat tip to our OCC for tracking many of these visits and to Clarence Hill for updating us most recently here and here.