What is the chance your favorite prospect makes it to the Cowboys at 17? We got some numbers for you

Last week, One Cool Customer provided a summary of 50 different mock drafts that showed what college players are being identified as possible selections of the Dallas Cowboys with their first-round pick. Using the concept of swarm intelligence, evaluating several different mock drafts offer up a more accurate prediction than any single mock. OCC did the leg work to determine just how often each of these top candidates were mocked to the Cowboys in those 50 drafts, producing the following results:

This provides a nice breakdown of when some of our favorite prospects are likely to come off the board. Based on these 50 mocks, you can see just how many times these players were still on the board when pick 17 rolls around. So, if you want to get an idea of the chances your favorite prospect is still available when the Cowboys are on the clock, just take the sum of what’s remaining after pick 16 and divide it by 50, and you have your percentages for each player.

If you have your heart set on one of the top wide receivers, then things are not looking so favorable, especially if that receiver is CeeDee Lamb or Jerry Jeudy. The odds get better as we work our way towards some of our favorite defensive prospects. Maybe there are multiple players you are okay with, like any of the three wide receivers or either of your favorite pair of defensive guys. Using the mock draft database and a little statistical probability, here are the odds of some pairings that may be of interest to you:

Maybe you’re not married to one player, but rather you hope to land any one of these top players. Let’s assume the Cowboys draft board is stacked in order of the higher demand player, and that you’re looking to take the top player available on that board. Here are the chances of any one of these combinations of players are available as we go down the list of this hypothetical draft board.

Chaisson and McKinney are the only two on this list that individually have greater than 50% chance of being there, but when you look at the entire group collectively, things start look more possible once you get down to C.J. Henderson. Our own Matt Holleran maps out why Henderson’s chances of being there aren’t that promising. That’s worth checking out if you’re holding your breath for the Florida corner.

Looking at these odds, you can certainly see why some people would be ecstatic if the Cowboys had a shot at selecting one of these top tier wide receivers. Swarming these mocks are telling us they might be pretty good. Should Dallas miss out on one of them, they shouldn’t fret as there are some really appealing WR choices on Day 2 of the draft.

Another thing to ask yourself is where is your cut off line for when the board dries up? Would you be happy with anyone up to Henderson? Chaisson? or McKinney? If all your top choices above the cutoff are gone by the time the Cowboys are on the clock, what would you want the Cowboys to do? Are they just going to settle and take the best player available on the board or are they getting on the phones and trying to work a deal to trade back in the draft and pick up some extra draft capital?

Settling is never good, and if the team is looking at a handful of players all tiered together, the smart move is to then to trade back in the draft so you can still get one of those players as well as add another pick later in the draft. And adding picks is always a good thing.

He’s not lying.

Trading back is always a popular alternative each year because - who doesn’t like extra draft picks? But maybe it’s a real possibility this year. Our own Tom Ryle recently took a look at the Cowboys list of pre-draft “visits” and what they could mean. On glaring similarity is that many of these players are projected to be late first-/early second-round picks. Could that mean the Cowboys are keeping their options open for a possible trade back situation?

So, what would you do if you were the Cowboys? Does your favorite prospect have a good shot to make it to 17? If not, who would you target in a trade back scenario? Let us know in the comments.