The Dallas Cowboys are seemingly always in the news and this offseason is no different. Much of the attention has been placed on the future of Tony Romo and the ongoing Ezekiel Elliott off-field saga but, between the white lines, Jerry Jones and company have made some interesting decisions in personnel and have a few more to get to in the near future.
Perhaps chief among them will be the team's first-round pick in the upcoming 2017 NFL Draft and Mel Kiper Jr. of ESPN projects a very intriguing piece to fall in the Cowboys' lap at No. 28 overall. That player is Michigan do-it-all star Jabrill Peppers and Kiper breaks it down in the following way:
Wouldn't this be a Jerry Jones type of pick? Peppers is one of the most well-known prospects in this class, but he's a tweener (5-11, 213) who's polarizing to NFL scouts. The team that drafts him will have to get creative and use him as a hybrid safety who can play the run and cover tight ends. Peppers also could be a great return man. He's a tremendous athlete (4.46 40, 35.5-inch vertical). And Dallas' secondary has been depleted in free agency — Brandon Carr, Morris Claiborne, Barry Church and J.J. Wilcox are all gone.
Peppers is a divisive player when it comes to the draft, largely because he doesn't follow a traditional model of position projection. The undersized super-athlete played linebacker at Michigan but projects as a safety (given his size) in the NFL. Beyond that, much has been made (at least in some circles) about his lack of "productivity" in the form of interceptions and it would take a unique scheme to integrate Peppers at an optimal level.
Still, the notion that this is a "Jerry Jones type of pick" rings true in that Peppers is both very famous and very explosive on the field. Can the Cowboys deploy him in the best possible fashion? Maybe not, but projecting him to Dallas would be entertaining for the rest of the league and potentially tantalizing for Dallas.
