TVS Sexy: Drafting Mazi Smith wasn't sexy, but Cowboys earned benefit of doubt

FRISCO — A little of the conventional wisdom fizzled out of the NFL draft Thursday when Atlanta took Bijan Robinson with the eighth pick and the Lions came back four slots later to snap up Jahmyr Gibbs of Alabama. Two running backs in the first dozen! What is this, 1981?

Turns out it’s 1991.

Or so the Cowboys hope.

Micah Parsons leaped for joy at the news, anyway.

Not since Russell Maryland helped jump-start the long-lost Super Bowl era under Jimmy Johnson and Jerry Jones had the Cowboys taken a defensive tackle with their first pick, and they figure Michigan’s Mazi Smith, hired to plug the leak in Dan Quinn’s running game at last, might just do the same for a win-now team.

He’d better, because Notre Dame’s Michael Mayer, considered the most complete tight end in the draft, sat front and center at 26, waiting for his phone to ring. ESPN’s production crew seemed so sure the Cowboys would make the call, it provided viewers a side-by-side comparison with Jason Witten.

Nolan Smith, the Georgia linebacker, was also still on the board. And if you really wanted to think outside the box, so was Will Levis, the rocket-armed Kentucky quarterback.

For that matter, Stephen Jones said they had “two or three guys” rated about the same as Smith. Prompted a good debate, he said. Probably not as much as he indicated, though.

Because what became clear late Thursday night was that the Cowboys wanted to fix their defense, and if a defensive tackle isn’t exactly sexy, it’s sound football strategy. Which hasn’t always been Jerry’s strong point in the war room.

Remember when he admonished Stephen that passing up Johnny Manziel to take Zack Martin was “hitting it down the middle”? The wildcatter in Jerry still itches for the big play. Ten years ago, he said Thursday, he probably wouldn’t have picked Smith.

But a lot has changed in the Cowboys’ draft room over the last decade, most of it for the better. Jerry trusts Will McClay. So should you. He’s been right more often than not since taking over the draft in 2014. He was right last year about Tyler Smith, an offensive tackle out of Tulsa mostly famous for leading all of college football in penalties. All Smith did as a rookie was bump Tyron Smith to the other side of the offensive line.

Could Mazi Smith make the same kind of immediate impact? He’s got all the tools you want in a defensive tackle. Big, nimble, smart. NextGen stats ranked him second only to Georgia’s Jalen Carter in athleticism among DTs, even if his production didn’t live up to it. NFL.com’s Lance Zierlein, who’s been doing his thing a long time, compares Smith to Dontari Poe, a brick wall in his prime.

Run stoppers usually don’t go high in a draft, though. A guy who can also give you an inside push? That’s rare. A great two-way defensive tackle, in fact, might be the rarest talent in football.

Could Smith develop into such a rare bird?

“There’s upside to the pass rush,” McClay said, which is about as expansive as he gets in press conferences.

Clearly Mike McCarthy’s a fan. He called Smith “an excellent pick.” McClay said the charge under McCarthy has been to make the roster “bigger, stronger and faster.” Smith answers two of those needs.

An Academic All-Big Ten selection at Michigan, a football player who majored in creative writing and literature, Smith doesn’t lack confidence. Asked what he brings to the defense, he said, “I’m like 325 pounds, first off. Real power in my hands.

“I came out the womb looking like I did push-ups.”

Of course, he wouldn’t be a Cowboys draft pick if he didn’t come with a little bit of controversy. Charged with felony gun possession last year following a traffic stop, he said should be getting his permit within a week or so.

Otherwise, Jerry assures us that they know “everything, everything, everything” about their latest first-rounder. Had him ranked 13th or 14th on their board, he said. Which was more information than the rest of the panelists wanted to divulge.

Not that any such thing stops Jerry.

“Last year I showed you the damn draft board,” he said. “I barely got back in the building.”

Said a grinning McCarthy: “He’s coachable, I’ll tell you that.”

Laugh if you want, but it’s true. These aren’t your late ‘90s, early Aughts Cowboys anymore. They don’t reach so much in the first. Under McClay, they sit and wait their turn. The last time they traded up in the first round was 2012, for Morris Claiborne. How did that work out?

If you’re not crazy about the Smith pick, the good news is most of the best tight end candidates are still available Friday.

And then there’s the fact that Bijan didn’t end up in Philadelphia. A major win, if you ask me, even if the Eagles added Carter to a loaded defensive line.

On the first day of the draft, the Cowboys’ defensive line got better, too. Is it good enough to push them over the hump? I baited Jerry, noting that the last time they drafted a defensive tackle in the first, they won a Lombardi Trophy two seasons later. Jerry noted that the Cowboys took a lot of flak for that pick, the first in the draft, but, otherwise, he wouldn’t bite.

Smith is different from Maryland. Bigger, mostly. Maybe more athletic. We’ll see if history follows on his heels.

Twitter: @KSherringtonDMN