The Dallas Cowboys were eyeing Packers’ Jordan Morgan with 24th pick

Morgan was among a group of four players that Dallas owner Jerry Jones “coveted” on Friday.

Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones overshares on draft weekend. It’s just kind of his thing.

Back in 2010, cameras filming Jones were able to lock onto information from Jones’ draft board, essentially leaking the Cowboys’ entire board for that class. Believe it or not, the exact same situation played out in 2013. In 2022, Jones went as far as to flash a card showing Dallas’ prospect rankings during a sitdown interview with the press.

So what was Jones’ big reveal for the 2024 draft? All of the players he wanted to remain on the board when the Cowboys traded back from the 24th pick to the 29th pick on Friday.

According to The Fort Worth Star-Telegram’s Clarence Hill Jr., Jones, in a post-selection interview session, told the media that the following players were prospects that he “coveted” with the 24th overall pick: Arizona tackle Jordan Morgan, Oklahoma tackle Tyler Guyton, Missouri defensive lineman Darius Robinson and Duke offensive lineman Graham Barton.

Three of those players were selected in the five picks from #24 to #28, with the first being the Green Bay Packers’ selection of Morgan. The drafting of Morgan was immediately followed by the Buccaneers taking Barton and the Cardinals selecting Robinson, which probably made the Cowboys second-guess their decision-making as Buffalo was on the clock. Fortunately for Dallas, the Bills didn’t select the final “coveted” prospect that Jones had his eye on — as they traded out of the selection with the Kansas City Chiefs, who picked Texas receiver Xavier Worthy.

Ultimately, Jones’ team turned in the 29th overall pick for Guyton, who Jones claimed was the prospect he most wanted to draft out of the bunch.

So if Packers fans were wondering why Green Bay “reached” for Morgan with the 25th pick, maybe it would ease their nerves to know that the Cowboys were having conversations about the Arizona product one selection before the Packers were even on the clock.

Based on the consensus draft board, only two offensive tackles left in the draft class are expected to be selected in the top 80 picks of the draft going into Day 2: BYU’s Kingsley Suamataia and Houston’s Patrick Paul. That could help explain why so many tackles made the cut on Jones’ list of coveted players. For perspective, nine college tackles were drafted in the first round of the draft alone — which set the record for the most offensive players selected in the first round of a draft ever.

If you didn’t come out of the first round with a tackle, the pickings are slim moving forward, as the draft is much stronger on Day 2 and Day 3 at the interior offensive line positions. According to the consensus draft board, all nine of the offensive linemen drafted on Friday were either drafted at the exact draft slot where they were ranked or were “overdrafted,” possibly highlighting media evaluators underrating the offensive line position as a whole.