One of the biggest question marks about the Dallas Cowboys in 2024 was the running back room, which was to be led by Ezekiel Elliott.
With Zeke, Rico Dowdle, and Deuce Vaughn, that didn’t inspire confidence that the offense under Mike McCarthy could run the ball effectively, and thus, it turned out to be true.
But the Cowboys, with the power of hindsight, could have added a running back in the draft, with NFL.com’s re-draft, Dallas takes Bucky Irving, who was taken by the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.
“Would drafting Bucky Irving have fixed Dallas’ woeful D or spared Dak Prescott from a season-ending hamstring injury? No. But the rookie RB sure could have made the first 11 weeks of the season more interesting for the Cowboys, who averaged a pathetic 81.7 rushing yard and 3.8 yards per carry (ranking 31st in the league in both categories) while falling to 3-7 in that span,” NFL.com writes. “As nice as Rico Dowdle’s breakout season was, he’s headed for free agency. Irving is something Dallas needs in the worst way: a star-caliber player early in his rookie contract.”
If the Cowboys were to take Bucky, then Zeke likely doesn’t return to Dallas, and Irving leads the running back room with Dowdle as his backup.
We saw what Irving did in his rookie campaign, rushing for 1,122 yards and eight touchdowns while posting 392 receiving yards to be the kind of dual-threat weapon Dallas needed.
But wait. With all due respect to NFL.com …how was Dallas supposed to take Bucky in Round 4 when by virtue of the Trey Lance trade, Dallas didn’t even own a fourth-round pick?
Remember?
A bunch of running backs were taken in the fourth round, including Tennessee’s Jaylen Wright (120th overall by Dolphins), Irving (125th overall by Bucs), Clemson’s Will Shipley (127th overall by the Eagles), Kentucky’s Ray Davis (128th overall by the Bills), Louisville’s Isaac Guerendo (129th overall by the 49ers) and Wisconsin’s Braelon Allen (134th overall by the Jets).
Dallas wanted to pull the trigger … but it never came together.
“You know I think a lot of times there’s always a question mark of, ‘Would you really, really, really stick to your board?'” Cowboys COO Stephen Jones said then. “It just felt like every time the situation was there for us to make a pick and do the right thing, it wasn’t a running back. We had running backs we’d be thinking, ‘OK, our pick is coming in 10 picks, eight picks, five picks away,’ and then there would be a run.
“We obviously had a group of running backs there in that space of 75 or 85 players on the board [in the fourth and fifth rounds], and we had a handful of backs that we would’ve considered, but it just didn’t work out.”
In fairness, that must be noted. … and so must this: What NFL.com has done here is a pretend “re-draft” of the first round. And it’s suggesting that Dallas would in retrospect use pick No. 24 on Bucky.
That seems a stretch.
The first half of the season, from a rushing perspective, was brutal for the Cowboys and Irving; while he wouldn’t have turned Dallas into the best rushing team in football, he would have improved them, no doubt.
But now we move forward …
Now, with the No. 12 pick and Ashton Jeanty in play, will we be here in a year from now, re-drafting the Boise State star to Dallas? Cowboys Nation sure hopes not.
