Cowboys 2021 Draft: The possibility of Rashawn Slater falling to #10 is real, could force a decision

We have finally arrived at the week of the 2021 NFL Draft. There is a lot of hype and excitement surrounding Thursday night’s first round and specifically what the Dallas Cowboys are going to do in it. There are a number of directions they can go and it feels like we have covered them all over the course of the last few months.

At present time if you asked your average Cowboys fan who they wanted to see the team draft, it feels like the majority would say one of Patrick Surtain II, Jaycee Horn, or Kyle Pitts. The first two are options that the team will likely have (at least one of them certainly) and whether or not the superstar tight end falls remains to be seen.

One option that we have certainly discussed is Northwestern tackle Rashawn Slater. While there is no question that we have covered how he can fit with the Cowboys, it does sort of feel like this idea has drifted while people have argued about the merits of Pitts against filling a defensive need.

We put together a BTB Roundtable episode for the Blogging The Boys podcast feed (subscribe on Apple devices right here or on Spotify right here) that we also dropped on our YouTube channel (please consider subscribing to it right here). Among the many guests that stopped by were The Athletic’s Dane Brugler.

One of the things that we asked Brugler about was what the ideal circumstances for the Cowboys would be at number 10 overall, specifically if he could manifest it himself what would it look like. He laid out the logic and came up with these hypothetical first nine names (jump to about the 31-minute mark for this particular discussion):

1. Jacksonville Jaguars: Trevor Lawrence
2. New York Jets: Zach Wilson
3. San Francisco 49ers: Trey Lance
4. Atlanta Falcons: Kyle Pitts
5. Cincinnati Bengals: Ja’Marr Chase
6. Miami Dolphins: Jaylen Waddle
7. Detroit Lions: Penei Sewell
8. Carolina Panthers: Patrick Surtain II
9. Denver Broncos: Micah Parsons

To be clear, Brugler noted that Rashawn Slater could be the pick to Carolina at number eight if not for Surtain, but if we play out the Surtain possibility this board would look really friendly for the Cowboys overall.

Dallas would still have options in Rashawn Slater or Jaycee Horn if that’s where they wanted to go. What’s more is that both Justin Fields (the more important name) and Mac Jones would be on the board which could convince somebody to jump up and let the Cowboys pick up some extra capital. Again, for full context, Brugler also noted that in this particular hypothetical we likely would have seen another team trade up which would give the Cowboys another option of a player assuming one of the two quarterbacks then got taken.

Overall this feels like a nirvana-type situation for Dallas but what is interesting about the exercise was how “easily” Slater slipped all the way down to number 10. So much discussion is about the possibility of Pitts being the one to fall there when that feels less likely in the grand scheme of things.

Surtain has an incredibly high floor as a corner but it would certainly be interesting to see the Cowboys potentially choose between Slater and Horn and a possible trade-back. If that were the case what would you want them to do?