Day 3 of the NFL draft is always a bit of a gamble, and the Dallas Cowboys placed an interesting bet when they selected Florida cornerback Devin Moore in the fourth round with the 114th overall pick. With the defense looking to shore up the secondary, Moore arrives in Dallas to provide some much-needed depth. While he might not be the playmaking corner some were hoping for, his addition gives the coaching staff a fascinating clay model to work with in the coming months.
If this selection has a little deja vu feel to it, that is because it looks incredibly similar to the move the front office made a few years back when they drafted Nahshon Wright. Both players entered the league with very little draft hype. Wright was deemed a raw prospect that many people felt was a huge reach for the Cowboys. Moore enters the league with similar crickets chirping as a laundry list of college injuries has made him an afterthought. But that doesn’t matter to Dallas. If they get locked in on a type of player they love, they’ll keep rolling the dice even if it crapped out on them the first time.
The physical similarities between Moore and Wright are almost eerie. Both players have the same physical archetype. They are towering specimens for the cornerback position, standing well over six feet tall with wingspans that could rival a small aircraft. Neither will win many pure foot races, as both lack elite recovery speed. However, they make up for that lack of jets with high-level press ability at the line of scrimmage, great zone instincts, and the kind of spatial awareness that can be dangerous for unsuspecting quarterbacks.
Cowboys fans may feel conflicted by this comparison. Things did not exactly go according to plan for Wright during his time in Dallas. He found himself buried on the depth chart early in his career, and when he did finally get his chances on the field, he became something of a penalty magnet. The Cowboys tried to use him as a traditional lateral cover man, asking him to mirror receivers step for step. Since fluid movement wasn’t really his jam, that strategy led to several breakdowns in the secondary with a side order of penalty flags.
Fortunately for Wright, his career did a 180 after landing with the Chicago Bears. Former Dallas defensive backs coach Al Harris got his hands on him and played him to his natural strengths. Instead of making him dance with shifty receivers, the Bears gave him instinctual freedom and his eyes facing forward. They told him to just go get the ball and use those pterodactyl arms to snatch his prey, and it resulted in a league-leading eight takeaways.
Moore enters the league with a fair amount of uncertainty surrounding him because of his reduced playing time from all those college injuries. There are plenty of question marks about his durability, but his game tape has shown the genuine promise of an instinctive, long corner who can make massive plays on the football. He has all the tools you could possibly want, but it is definitely all about potential at this point in his journey.
This selection means the Cowboys are officially getting a second chance at getting exactly what they want from this specific type of cornerback. If the coaching staff can take the lessons learned from the Wright era and apply them to Moore’s development, Dallas might have just secured a bargain corner. If he can avoid the medical tent, it should be fun to watch this physical giant develop in training camp.
