Imagining NBA draft lottery results for the 2021 NFL Draft order and the impact on the Cowboys

At present moment the 2021 NFL Draft is well in the rearview mirror. The Dallas Cowboys selected 11 total players highlighted by the newest number 11 in linebacker Micah Parsons, and overall committed to rebuilding a defense that struggled mightily last season.

Across the world of sports many are currently reacting to the results from Tuesday night’s NBA Draft Lottery. Obviously the way that the NBA handles its non-playoff teams is very different than the way that the NFL does, but it does manage to make things interesting.

There are likely no NFL fans who would prefer a lottery system as opposed to a true worst-is-first style draft order, but what if there was a lottery involved in the NFL draft?

For the purposes of this exercise we are going to have to be a bit creative given that we are comparing two different sports. Here are the ground rules for our hypothetical:

• The original 2021 NFL Draft order is what we are looking at given that any hypothetical (although we are assigning the third-overall pick to the Miami Dolphins even though it originally belonged to the Houston Texans)
• While some NBA teams had equal odds for this year’s lottery we listed them per the Association’s breakdown formula
• The chart reads (from left to right) original 2021 NFL Draft order, their corresponding NBA team in terms of lottery odds for this year, how the 2021 NBA Draft order actually wound up, and what the then-imagined NFL draft order would look like if they were the teams plugged in instead

The Dallas Cowboys aren’t impacted at all in terms of their original pick. The Cowboys held the 10th overall selection which they wound up trading to the Philadelphia Eagles on draft night, but if this lottery hypothetical were to exist that might not have ever happened.

Consider that the pick that Dallas ultimately took Micah Parsons with (number 12 overall) technically passed hands three different times. It originally belonged to the San Francisco 49ers, who traded it to the Miami Dolphins when they moved up to number three overall to take what wound up being Trevor Lawrence. It was Miami who traded up from 12 to number six with Philadelphia right after that San Francisco trade which led to the positioning we entered draft night with.

In this hypothetical it is the Cincinnati Bengals who hold the number three overall pick and not the Miami Dolphins. Would San Francisco have still traded with them like they did Miami? The Bengals took a skill player in wide receiver Ja’Marr Chase, but perhaps they would not have had the creativity to jump back up into the top six like Miami did (they wound up taking Jaylen Waddle). Perhaps Cincinnati would have been too in love with say Kyle Pitts to move from there which would have opened up another possibility for the Atlanta Falcons two picks later.

Obviously these results are merely hypothetical, but they are fun to consider and talk about. So much of the draft and really football in general (also life in general) can be boiled down to one moment in time and if it had gone any other direction a whole different timeline with multiple different factors would unfold.