Cowboys Strike NFL Draft Alabama Gold - Surtain & Barmore - In Kiper/McShay Mock

Cornerback Patrick Surtain and defensive tackle Christian Barmore? Without a Cowboys trade?

Mike Fisher | Apr 21, 2021

FRISCO - We here at CowboysSI.com have painted some NFL Draft scenarios in which the Dallas Cowboys use their first three picks - at Nos. 10, 44 and 75 - to net two players, both from Alabama.

Cornerback Patrick Surtain and defensive tackle Christian Barmore.The ESPN Mel Kiper/Todd McShay NFL Mock Draft just found us a more simple way.

The two network analysts, going back and forth with picks through the first few rounds, got to Round 1 (McShay picking) and Dallas getting Surtain, maybe the best - and certainly the most polished - defensive player in the entire draft.

Surtain to Dallas at 10 would surprise no one.

Then, somehow, Kiper and McShay plowed through the rest of Round 1, and part of Round 2, and Barmore remained on the board.

So, in Round 2 (McShay picking), Barmore - thought by many to be a mid-first-round talent who underachieved in college but who could break out big-time in the NFL - lands to Dallas.

Barmore to Dallas would not be a shocker. But the way we've theorized it, the Cowboys would engineer that by using No. 10 (on Penei Sewell, Rashawn Slater, Surtain or Jaycee Horn, maybe thought of in that order) and then by later packaging picks Nos. 44 and 75 to jump back into the 20's in the first round to grab Barmore (or TCU safety Trevon Moehrig, cornerback Caleb Farley or one of the available linebackers).

But to get Surtain without moving ... and then to get Barmore without also giving up an extra pick? That would be a coup.

In Round 3 (Kiper picking) gives Dallas the Stanford offensive tackle Walker Little, who happens to come from a Texas football family, and then (Kiper picking) brings to Dallas the safety Jamar Johnson of Utah.

In a talent-first way, this mock works. In a need-filling way, it works, too. But in getting two premium guys without sacrificing the extra pick that we believe it'll actually take to get a Surtain plus a Barmore? It's a gold-rush of talent.

Published Apr 21, 2021

MIKE FISHER

Mike Fisher - as a newspaper beat writer and columnist and on radio and TV, where he is an Emmy winner - has covered the NFL since 1983 and the Dallas Cowboys since 1990, is the author of two best-selling books on the Cowboys.