DALLAS — Between 2 and 5:30 p.m. Sunday while you are watching the Eagles and 49ers contend for a trip to the Super Bowl, it will likely be mentioned more than once that one quarterback is an NFL MVP finalist and the other a stunning Rookie of the Year finalist. You can only hope the Cowboys take note.
The Eagles drafted Jalen Hurts with the 53rd pick in the 2020 draft. There were some concerns that Hurts was a more gifted runner than pro passer, but that‘s not the crux of the matter for Dallas. The key is that Philadelphia used its second-round pick on a quarterback when Carson Wentz was coming off a perfectly healthy 16-game, 4,000-yard, 27-to-7 touchdowns-to-interceptions season. The dark cloud that hovers over Wentz’s career today was not visible (at least not west of the Schuylkill River) but the Eagles plunged ahead with a quarterback, anyway. That’s despite the fact that a 9-7 team could have used help in any number of areas.
They didn’t draft Hurts to replace Wentz but he did, anyway. And now the Eagles are favored to reach the Super Bowl.
The 49ers weren’t looking for a quarterback last April. They were trying to move one. But with no great offers for Jimmy Garoppolo, they hung onto the former Super Bowl quarterback as a backup to Trey Lance, taken with the third overall pick the following year. At the end of the draft — the 262nd pick — the 49ers figured they might as well grab someone to take practice reps since Garoppolo was going to be recovering from injury for awhile.
Enter Brock Purdy, 7-0 and Rookie of the Year candidate.
The Cowboys lost to Hurts in October and Purdy last Sunday to end their season. Regardless of what Cooper Rush does this offseason, he is not the heir apparent to Dak Prescott. For one thing, while Dak turns 30 in July, Rush turns 30 in November. I don’t care if the Cowboys take a quarterback in the second round like Hurts or the seventh like Purdy — although scouts will have to prove awfully fortunate to make another find like that one — they need to draft one somewhere.
It’s not so much to put a scare into or light a fire under Prescott as it is to prepare for the future. You never know when it’s going to smack you in the face. The Eagles never thought Wentz, a true MVP candidate in 2017 and a solid quarterback in 2019, would look so done by the end of 2020 they would be shipping him to Indianapolis. The 49ers never thought Lance or Jimmy G would both be unavailable when it mattered. But the talent is so good and Kyle Shanahan’s system so sound that a seventh-round rookie can pilot the ship through troubled waters as we saw Sunday.
Needless to say, adding a young quarterback as a future hope is hardly the Cowboys’ only draft need. As you watch the Eagles and 49ers, it will again be readily apparent that even with Dalton Schultz — a player likely to be cut loose by Dallas, both for salary reasons and his own inattention to detail at the end of the 49ers game — the Cowboys aren’t close at tight end. San Francisco’s George Kittle is an outstanding additional offensive lineman when he isn’t making game-breaking plays in the middle of the Dallas secondary. And Dallas Goedert, even with his numbers down from a year ago, makes plays deeper down the field than the Cowboys tight ends manage.
If you assume Tony Pollard is back, then Dallas has a starting back as good as Miles Sanders, but the Cowboys are missing the depth that Christian McCaffrey and Elijah Mitchell give the 49ers. That is, unless you’re thinking there’s really a reason to bring Ezekiel Elliott back for more two-yards-and-a-cloud-of-dust activity. On top of that, with Prescott at quarterback, Dallas lacks the run-pass option that is such a weapon for Philadelphia.
Perhaps the biggest deficiency is at the second wide receiver spot. CeeDee Lamb still needs to work on his consistency from week to week to be as reliable as A.J. Brown, and he’ll likely never be as tough as Deebo Samuel, but he makes plays. However, the Eagles’ DeVonta Smith won a Heisman at Alabama for a reason. He caught 95 passes for almost 1,200 yards this season. Brandon Aiyuk added 1,000 yards and eight touchdowns to the 49ers offense while working with three different quarterbacks.
Michael Gallup, T.Y. Hilton and Noah Brown aren’t in the same category with these secondary weapons.
And this is just the skill positions where we train our eyes and fill out our fantasy lineups. The Cowboys need more than good health to copy the Eagles and 49ers in the offensive line. And while Dallas was impressive Sunday in matching San Francisco’s intensity on defense, the unit eventually wore down against the run late and failed at its turnover goal that almost has to be achieved for the Cowboys to win big games.
In other words, since they played the final game last Sunday, the Cowboys were one of the last five NFL teams standing this season. Close to the Final Four?
I’m not so sure about that.
