Yahoo Sports’ Senior NFL Writer Charles Robinson and Yahoo Sports’ Lead NFL Draft Analyst Eric Edholm discuss the several curious selections made by Dallas in the 2022 NFL Draft. Did they do anything to replenish the talent drain that they’ve endured over the offseason? Hear the full conversation on the You Pod to Win the Game podcast. Subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher or wherever you listen.

Video transcript

[CROWD CHEERING]

[BAT HITS BALL]

CHARLES ROBINSON: Dallas went into this draft. They needed-- they needed a lot OK, like, in terms of replacing some of the pieces, OK? It's not been a great offseason. There has been some talent drain there for Dallas. And so I think for me, you hear Jerry talk about-- Jerry Jones came in and was talking about, oh, you know, going outside the box.

And it kind of felt very inside the box, especially the first couple of picks. Look, Tyler Smith, offensive tackle out of Tulsa, I get it-- athlete. I understand the it's raw, but you see the traits-- a very traits-driven pick. It's sort of boom or bust. Like, hey, if he develops into what he's capable of potentially being, we could be a couple of years down the line and go, man, in the redraft, he's, like, a top-five pick, like, totally could be that.

It depends on whether he's a tackle. It depends on whether he's a guard. But that's a little bit of a dice roll, where they were. And I guess personally I felt like they could have been more aggressive about trying to move up for maybe one of those guards that went earlier than we thought.

But then I think Sam Williams, the Ole Miss defensive end, which I knew a little bit about because we'd done the All Juice Team, and I had a few people bring him up. And-- but what was interesting to me is all of his juice is in the pass rush. It's like a lot of people were just like, you know, just kind of one dimensional. He's, like, a one-way sort of player. Like, he's a pass rusher. He's not going to be in the NFL level a great run defender.

He's probably going to be run liability. We'll see if that's the case. But to me, I'm like, OK, now we have another player where maybe you're getting something out of him from a pass rusher standpoint. But is he someone that you're going to have to take off the field situationally maybe repeatedly?

I just-- I don't know. I thought I expected more out of Dallas. I really did. I thought there was a chance they would be a little more aggressive than they were. You expect, like, OK, they're going to get beat out by the Eagles in terms of aggression. Fine. But Detroit? Like, you know, didn't see Detroit go, hey, here's this receiver we want. We're going to make this huge move and get this done.

I think for Dallas, I would have felt a lot better about the class if I was like, they're absolutely walking out of this draft with the guy, one big impact player that they really focused in on and went up and got. I'll tell you what, though, I will also say this, been a lot of flak in past Dallas classes. And there were people who didn't like Parsons pick, right? And he turned out to be great. So it what was a little bit of a head scratcher, though, for me.

ERIC EDHOLM: I killed their 2021 class for character reasons, right? They got the Marshall kid who got, you kicked, out of Florida State, was amid sexual misconduct allegations. And Parsons was a different cat, right? I mean, there were people who weren't, you know, too sure about him and remain so. Like, they think, you know, the better he plays, the more chance something wrong happening.

You know, the LSU corner, who's in trouble now, you've talked about it-- Joseph. You know, so I killed their class for character. You know, Tyler Smith, I think, considered a relatively high character kid, Jalen Tolbert, too. But Sam Williams comes with some character issues, too. You know, he's had kind of a scattered past as well.

And if you watch him as a pass rusher, it's all gas, no brakes like. He's, just sort of flies into the backfield. So, yeah, I'm with you. I thought it was a little bit of a reach there. And I like-- I like Sam Williams to a degree, but you forced a bunch of fumbles in college. But, you know, he's volatile stock, I would say.

CHARLES ROBINSON: Yeah, well, the all-gas, no-brakes guys never fare well in-- versus the run.

ERIC EDHOLM: Right.

CHARLES ROBINSON: Because at some point--

ERIC EDHOLM: Yeah, they fly by the ball.

CHARLES ROBINSON: Yeah. Let's run at the all-gas, no-brakes guy. And chances are he's going to, you know, play himself out of position, and we're going to gash them. So we'll see. Maybe that's just part of his game that, you know, can be developed on the NFL level. I just, for me, when I sat there, and I was like, OK, your first two picks automatically are kind of, like, OK, there's a lot of development here. If they don't work, you really have dug a little bit of a hole for yourself.