A few years ago, the intrepid folks at the Dallas Cowboys-focused blog Blogging the Boys pieced together video screen shots of the Cowboys' draft day war room to construct pretty much all of the team's seven-round draft board. This year, it appears they may have done it again.
The War Room #farewelltovalleyranch#CowboysNation#dallascowboyspic.twitter.com/CvPi55G44T
— Dana Jones (@djonesin) July 14, 2016
The folks over at BTB did some analyzing of the screen shot in the tweet above and came up with a list that included over 100 of the 149 players apparently on Dallas' board and positioned them where they appear to be on the actual list. Here's the Rounds 1-4 portion of the board.
Because the names on the board in the screen shot were handwritten rather than typed out, some of them were illegible. That, plus the fact that it took over two months for the screen shot to surface also led BTB to post a disclaimer noting that it's possible the board was reproduced after the draft and not the actual board the Cowboys used on draft day. As you can see from the pictures of the 2013 draft board, they've used printed placards in the past, not handwritten whiteboards.
Based on BTB's analysis of where the names are placed and several public comments by Jerry and Stephen Jones, though, this board does seem fairly accurate. (Accurate meaning, this is how the Cowboys ranked players in the 2016 draft.) It's not quite that big a deal that the board leaked out, being that the draft is over, but this is now the second time in four years that this ostensibly private information has become public. it sure seems like either the Cowboys don't particularly care that it got out, or they wanted it to get out.
