The Cowboys have had their misses over the last decade of drafting. Here are the 10 worst disappointments.
Over the last decade of NFL drafts, the Dallas Cowboys have done better than many teams in consistently adding talent. But they’ve also had their disappointments, and ahead of this year’s draft starting, we’re going to look back on the 10 worst picks that Dallas has had since 2014.
What makes a bad draft pick? It’s a balance between how high a player was selected and how little he contributed. For example, a first-round pick not making it to his fourth season is far more egregious than a sixth-round guy who doesn’t even make the team as a rookie. The expectations are so much higher on Days 1-2.
Indeed, for anyone to be labeled a “bad pick” on Day 3, especially after the fourth round, is a bit of a stretch. The margin between those prospects and undrafted free agents isn’t that wide, so it’s not that shocking if they get squeezed out by someone else during training camp and preseason. Or, the team may decide that a late veteran free agent addition gives them better depth than the late-round rookie.
Given that, today’s list is comprised of all picks from Rounds 1-4 of the last ten drafts. Some are absolute busts, while others simply didn’t do enough to say they were worth the higher pick with which they were acquired. Let’s get into it.
10. DE Charles Tapper (2016, 4th round)
Tapper was more an issue of bad luck than bad strategy. An undiagnosed back condition, not found until training camp of his rookie year, cost him that first season. Then a foot injury landed him on IR after just a few weeks in 2017. By his third year, Tapper didn’t make the roster at final cuts and was only on the practice squad for three days before Dallas cut all ties.
9. WR Ryan Switzer (2017, 4th round)
The Cowboys only got one year out of Switzer as a return specialist, where he was solid, then traded him away for DT Jihad Ward. Ward didn’t even make the roster while Dallas’ new return man, veteran Tavon Austin, missed nine games that year. Switzer didn’t last in the NFL beyond 2019, so he probably wouldn’t have been a long-term guy for the Cowboys anyway. But this felt like a time that Dallas gave up too soon on a potential asset.
8. DB Reggie Robinson (2020, 4th round)
While he played cornerback in college, Robinson was moved to safety as a rookie and it didn’t seem to take. He barely played that first year and then was injured in 2021. The Cowboys didn’t even let him compete in his third season, waiving him that March after drafting several new defensive backs the year before. While fourth-round picks are hardly supposed to be future stars or even starters, getting next to nothing out of one is still bad business.
7. DT Neville Gallimore (2020, 3rd round)
You could do a lot worse than Gallimore, hence why he’s only seventh on the list. But for a guy taken in the third round to only give you 14 starts over four years, it was a poor return on investment. Gallimore started nine games as a rookie thanks to injuries and that ended up being his best work. An elbow injury cost him most of 2021, and then he failed to earn his way back up the depth chart with Osa Odighizuwa’s arrival. Gallimore left the team as a free agent this past March after only appearing on 27% of the defensive snaps last season.
6. OT Josh Ball (2021, 4th round)
Ball is still on the roster after three years but that will probably end a few months from now. He never played in 2021 or 2023 with injury issues and only appeared on 41 snaps in his second season, and to poor reviews. What makes this pick especially bad is the public relations hit it came with given Ball’s history with a domestic violence accusation in college. The Cowboys would’ve been better off without the bad look given how little Ball’s done for them.
5. OT Chaz Green (2015, 3rd round)
Speaking of bad reviews, few have been a bigger liability than Green in their time with Dallas. Injuries were part of it, costing Green lots of offseason development work throughout his three years with the Cowboys. But there was little sign of any upside to him when he did play, especially the infamous 2017 loss to Atlanta in which he started at left tackle and gave up four sacks. Green didn’t play another offensive snap for Dallas after that game and was released at final cuts the following year.
4. CB Nahshon Wright (2021, 3rd round)
As bad as Green was, at least he got on the field. Dallas apparently trusts Wright so little that you rarely see him on defense, where he only played 7% of the time last season. Like fellow 2021 draftee Kelvin Joseph, Wright was quickly leapfrogged by 2022 fifth-round pick DaRon Bland on the depth chart and it’s surprising he even made the team last season. Unless there’s something about the switch to Zimmer from Quinn that unlocks something in Wright’s game, it’s doubtful he’ll be back.
3. DT Trysten Hill (2019, 2nd round)
Hill was put in the unenviable spot of being Dallas’ first pick in the 2019 draft despite only going 58th overall; the Cowboys had traded their first-rounder to Oakland for WR Amari Cooper. That put extra attention on Hill as the top rookie addition, and he didn’t help by having a rough season. Reports that Hill’s work ethic had him in the coaches’ doghouse made matters worse.
Hill did show modest improvement in his second season once thrust into a starting role by the injury to veteran Gerald McCoy. But then Hill himself was lost to injury in Week 5, and that seemed to kill whatever momentum he’d started to build. The injury carried into 2021, and by 2022 Hill was barely getting playing time behind fresher faces. He was cut midway through that fourth year, having only given Dallas five total starts at a position of need.
2. CB Kelvin Joseph (2021, 2nd round)
Joseph was considered a potential first-round talent in his draft but fell with character concerns. Whether his off-field distractions had anything to do with his job performance is hard to say, but Joseph’s failure to develop as a football player was evident. He spent most of his rookie year on special teams; a bad look for a second-round pick. Despite injuries to veterans in his second season, Joseph still failed to step up as Dallas turned to Nahshon Wright and DaRon Bland.
At final cuts last year, Joseph was shipped to Miami for Noah Igbinoghene in an exchange of busted cornerbacks. He only made it to mid-November with the Dolphins before getting released, then bounced to the Seahawks’ and Chiefs’ practice squads. The tires have been kicked a few times now on Joseph, and it’s pretty clear that he’s a lemon. Unfortunately, the Cowboys paid the sticker price for him.
1. DE Taco Charlton (2017, 1st round)
Charlton is the only true first-round bust that Dallas has had in the last decade. It’s still too early to say what Mazi Smith will become. Charlton was just bad, giving the Cowboys so little in two years that they wound up releasing him just a couple of weeks into his third season. Like Hill, Charlton was rumored to have rubbed defensive coordinator Rod Marinelli the wrong way with his attitude and effort.
Since then, Charlton has traveled the NFL map with stops in Miami, Kansas City, Pittsburgh, New Orleans, Chicago, Jacksonville, and San Francisco. Despite so many opportunities, he’s appeared in just 33 games over the last five years and only in bit roles. He’s now playing for the Birmingham Stallions in the UFL, and a return to the big leagues feels doubtful.
As much as Cowboys fans would love to forget about Charlton, he’ll live on in infamy as the guy Dallas took over T.J. Watt. But unlike poor Greg Ellis, who was actually a great player here but is forever knocked for not being Randy Moss, Charlton made the miss on Watt an absolute disaster by contributing nothing in his own right.
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