Last year at camp, I revisited a favorite roster assessment mode, which is to rank all the players, regardless of position. As you know, most standard roster assessment posts look at the top players by each position group. This is a reasonable methodology, and it's how we began the assessment process for this exercise, but there is a crucial drawback: it doesn't offer the clearest of pictures about the talent distribution across the team; as those of you who have studied this iteration of the Cowboys' roster know, the fifth wide receiver can be better than, say, the backup left tackle.
And, while organizations certainly look at the various position groups as they prepare for difficult roster cut decisions, they must also rank the entire roster if they are to, as Jason Garrett says, "keep the best 53." Ranking all the players currently on the Cowboys roster not only shows us how strong our Beloved 'Boys are at some positions but also where they will need be relying on duct tape, baling wire and a few hosannas. More importantly, it offers insight into the disparity that exists between the various position groups.
It was with this in mind that my podcast partner, Landon McCool and I set about to rank this year's players from 1-90, since Landon is here for both camp practices this weekend. This was no easy task; we spent two and a half hours with index cards spread across one of our beds making agonizing decisions: Is Dwayne Harris better than Cole Beasley (we agreed he was)? If so, by how much (not by a lot, we figured).
This is a good time to conduct this experiment. We are a week into camp, and so there is considerable more clarity than there was July 23rd. Just those few days ago, it was a relatively simple endeavor to rank last year's draft class, but slotting the 2014 draft picks and UDFAs was much more difficult, largely because we had seen little to nothing of them. As a result, all I could offer pre-camp were educated guesstimates; now, after eight camp practices, and several tete-a-tetes with other careful observers, we have a much better handle on the newbies. Okay, here we go:
