Fans often think the draft process is one big mystery, but there’s plenty of opportunities to slim down the talent pool and have a strong idea of what type of players the Dallas Cowboys are looking for.

Here, we’ve taken the athletic profiles of every player the team has drafted in the Jason Garrett era, and developed position-by-position profiles as to what combine and Pro-Day times and measurements are exceptional, acceptable or below standards.

We then applied it to the entire 2018 draft class and put it together in one spreadsheet.

How to interpret the spreadsheet

The Cowboys love elite athleticism. If they select a player early in the draft, they are normally exceptionally athletic, even for NFL standards. That gives insight into who they will like in each year’s draft. The athletic profiles of previous picks gives additional weight to various metrics.

The following example is of the current Cowboys athletic benchmark guide for WRs.

HT WT ARM HAND 40 10 20 2-20 20 SS 3-CONE VERT BROAD BENCH 6027 222 33.375 10.125 4.50 1.56 2.63 1.85 4.00 6.69 37 124 19 6002 202 31 9.25 4.54 1.61 2.65 1.89 4.17 6.87 34 117 13 5084 181 28 8.75 4.59 1.67 2.70 1.96 4.33 7.07 32 111 10

Each player will have their own athletic profile within the guide similar to this but with only one set of numbers coded in one of four different colors.

Blue (not shown above)indicate a measure, time or distance that is better than any player drafted by the Dallas Cowboys since 2011.

Dark Green represents the highest measure or the best score a player who Dallas drafted (since 2011) has achieved. For example, the tallest WR the Cowboys have drafted was 6027, or 6-foot-2 and 7/8th of an inch.

A dark green score for a particular player indicates they exceeded the average score attained by previous picks.

Light Green in the legend represents the average of the players Dallas has drafted at the position.

A light green score for a specific player means he has scored below thecurrent Dallas average, but still higher than the worst that has been drafted.

Red represents the lowest measure, or the worst score, in the athletic tests. In the table above, the red numbers indicate the assumed Dallas minimal threshold.

Any player result marked in red means it is below the lowest measurable by a Dallas draft pick since 2011.

A blue score does not necessarily mean better in the case of height and weight, just that it exceeds the previous maximum. A blue score does however mean better in the case in arm length, hand size and the combine drills.

The Data

Below are the complete, comprehensive guides of all the athletic markers available for the 2018 NFL draft. The guide is composed of the results from the NFL Combine and individual Pro-Days, but with sometimes a stark contrast between the two, along with the many variables of Pro-Days settings, all numbers from the Combine were given precedence over Pro-Day results.

Click on each position to see how the 2018 class stacks up to previous selections.

Wide Receivers | Guards | Tackles | Defensive Tackles | Linebackers

Edge Rushers | Safeties | Cornerbacks | Running Backs | Tight Ends

Quarterbacks | Centers | 30 Visitors | Picks By Year | Picks By Round

To view the spreadsheet in its entirety, click here.

Background

With the NFL draft just around the corner, fans have been in full pseudo-scout mode and doing their best to learn about prospective players that may end up as Dallas Cowboys. In this

While game performance should always be the primary factor in player evaluations, athletic testing should be a major contributing factor. With most fans not being able to access full game film, athletic testing becomes a large part in helping to understand how the Cowboys front office views prospects.

Taking the emotion out of prospect evaluation serves a specific purpose. Chiseling out an athletic profile base on cold, hard facts is paramount in deciding whether the talents a prospect puts on film can translate to the professional ranks – call it glacial profiling.

Dallas’ preferences in measurements and drill scores from the NFL Combine were catalogued for all draft picks since 2011 as numerical profiles. The result was the following benchmarks guide.