Dallas Cowboys Showing Heavy Interest in Dontari Poe

According to Tony Pauline of draftinsider.net (he also does a lot of work for Sports Illustrated). The Dallas Cowboys are looking heavily at the defensive line, and right now as of today the favorite seems to be Dontari Poe out of Memphis.

Around draft time last year there was heavy speculation that at #9 overall the Dallas Cowboys top two targets (they thought would be available) were OT Tyron Smith, and DL J.J. Watt. Despite all of the discussion about the lack of playmakers in the Cowboys secondary, a big issues with the Dallas Cowboys defense has been the three down linemen. Jay Ratliff is a terrific player at nose tackle, but the team lacks terrific talent at Right and Left Defensive end.

Adding Poe makes a lot of sense, if Poe can maximize on his talents than the team could have a Haloti Ngata caliber player. Even if he doesn’t his presence allows the Cowboys to consider moving Jay Ratliff to one of the defensive end positions. There are other defensive linemen who make sense for the Cowboys, if they are able to move back some Penn State DL Devon Still seems like an ideal candidate to play the five technique in their defense.

Never the less, usually when there’s smoke there’s some fire. Last year the Cowboys were considering adding defensive linemen early, and this year the value of their pick will likely lend itself to defensive line as a combination of players between Dontari Poe, Fletcher Cox, Devon Still, Michael Brockers, and Quinton Coples (I’d be surprised about Coples) is likely to be available when they select. With the addition of Brandon Carr in free agency, defensive line might not only represent good value, but fill their biggest defensive need.