http://www.theredzone.org/BlogDescription/tabid/61/EntryId/5882/Cowboys-draft-board-leaked-/Default.aspx

I found a "story" on theredzone.org about the possibility of the Cowboys draft board being caught on draft coverage and then "blown up" to a size that is readable.

Very interesting.

It looked to me at first that this was a "mock draft" done by the Cowboys of where they thought players would be picked. The 1st column definitely shows players coming of the board to teams that would likely be interested in them.

It shows the top 23 picks of round 1, except Jerry's arm blocks the #11 and #12. I'd guess they had Dez Bryant to the Broncos at #11 and Earl Thomas to the Dolphins at #12. Then I can tell Bulaga was projected to San Fran at #13 because it says "1-23" next to his arm. They had LB Sean Lee going #14 to the Seahawks, so I guess that is why they traded up in round 2 to get him.

OK... now for the Lions picks!

They had the Lions taking McCoy at #2 overall!!!

The Boys also had Jahvid Best going #21 to the Bengals!

Amari Spievey was the 3rd "column" of this board.

I assume that means they believed Spievey would go in the 3rd round, but it the 2nd column is MUCH shorter than the 1st and 3rd columns, and I'm not sure why. Since we can't see the bottom of round #1, maybe it contains more than 32 players?


Other interesting players:

Anthony Davis... selected #11 overall was in their 3rd column.
Novorro Bowman.. a late 3rd rounder... was projected to Houston in round 1.
Ben Tate... drafted #58 by Houston, was projected as a mid-4th rounder.
CB Pat Robinson was projected as a 3rd rounder on their board.
OT Rodger Saffold was a mid 3rd rounder.
The Bills' early 2nd rounder Torell Troup was a 4th rounder on this board.
Toby Gerhart was a mid-3rd on their board.
Ryan Matthews was projected as #12.... in the 2nd round!!!
Kareem Jackson (#20 pick) was projected as 13th pick of 2nd round.

must be weighted to their needs..

or they planted it. hoping it would help them get who they wanted

It's difficult to tell what each column means. One possibility is that they had a 1st round grade on more than one column worth of players, and that's why the second one is so short. In that case, the 3rd column would be the 2nd round grades. I just don't know.

The one thing that would make me think this is their "real" board is that Sean Lee was listed in the middle of round 1, and then they traded up to get him in the 2nd round.

I didn't see amy mock drafts with Sean Lee rated that highly, so I don't think they would have put a higher "value" on him for a "fake" board, and then select him. It seems they would have put a lower grade on him if he was a player they were targeting.

This just shows how ridiculous all of the prognosticating that we do is. It's fun to do, yes, but it really only depends on what the individual team thinks of the players. Mock Drafts are fun to look at, but they really don't project to the way that each individual team drafts and oddball picks like Jacksonville this year. That causes a big change in the way the board falls. We don't understand why some teams draft the way they do, but they feel like they are taking either the best player on their board, or the best player on their board at a certain position.

The ranking are actually the numbers. Like Suh, he was 1.2 (Or first round grade, 2nd player ranked) but had us drafting McCoy who was 1.3.

Spievey for example was ranked 3.66 (3rd round grade 66th rank) but put him as getting picked up by the Patriots at 88. The second round I think they ignore placement because they black listed a lot of players they thought would go in the second. So instead its more of which players they will think go before others even if they had them ranked properly. In fact that might apply to all of the picks outside the first round which is what I think the teams on the side are for.

The numbers next to the players were the PICK that they ACTUALLY selected.

Notice Anthony Davis has 1.11 next to him. They certainly didn't think he was the 11th best player on the board, but expect him to fall into the 3rd round.

Spievey was the ACTUAL 66th pick of the draft.

Yeah looking over that your right. That makes having the teams on the left stupid and redundant then. I guess this means it was shot really late in the draft process.