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The Cowboys have made some expensive mistakes at the top of the draft – the kind of picks that end up on lists like this one’s counterpart series.
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But in the same era, they’ve also found a franchise quarterback in the fourth round, an All-Pro pass rusher in the second, and a pair of Pro Bowl defenders who should have cost first-round picks.
America’s Team, it turns out, does some of its best work in the middle rounds.
1. Dak Prescott – Round 4, Pick 135, 2016
The Cowboys had Tony Romo. They didn’t need a quarterback. So they took Dak Prescott in the fourth round as a developmental backup, handed him the starting job when Romo suffered a compression fracture in his back during the preseason, and watched him go 13-3, win Offensive Rookie of the Year, and make the Pro Bowl in his first season.
Romo never started another game for Dallas.
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Prescott, the 135th pick in the 2016 draft, became the Cowboys’ franchise quarterback for the next decade and signed a four-year, $160 million contract extension in 2021. The same draft class included Jared Goff (Pick 1), Carson Wentz (Pick 2), Paxton Lynch (Pick 26), and Christian Hackenberg (Pick 51) – four quarterbacks drafted ahead of Prescott.
Lynch started four games and Hackenberg never played a regular-season snap. Goff and Wentz had longer careers but neither carried his franchise the way Prescott has carried Dallas.
Prescott went 134 picks later and became the best of the group. He has led Dallas to multiple playoff appearances and owns the highest career passer rating in Cowboys history.
The fourth round gave them a franchise quarterback. The franchise paid franchise money to keep him.
2. DeMarcus Lawrence – Round 2, Pick 34, 2014
Lawrence came out of Boise State with questions about his motor and his injury history – he suffered a broken foot in his first Cowboys training camp in 2014, limiting him to eight games as a rookie.
The Cowboys spent two years developing him before he exploded. In 2017, Lawrence recorded 14.5 sacks, made the Pro Bowl, and became the anchor of a Dallas pass rush that had been inconsistent for years.
Lawrence went on to make five Pro Bowls across his career and signed a five-year, $105 million extension in 2019. He produced that contract on the strength of what the Cowboys saw in a second-round pick who other teams had downgraded for an injury.
The 2014 draft included five pass rushers taken before Lawrence in the first round. He outproduced four of them over the course of his career. A second-round edge rusher who became a franchise defensive piece: the quiet steal on a list full of louder ones.
3. Tony Pollard – Round 4, Pick 128, 2019
The Cowboys drafted Pollard as a change-of-pace back behind Ezekiel Elliott, and he spent three seasons in a reduced role before getting his chance.
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Pollard had already earned a Pro Bowl in 2022 as a change-of-pace back behind Elliott, rushing for 1,007 yards and nine touchdowns. When Dallas released Elliott before the 2023 season, Pollard stepped into the starting role and ran for 1,005 yards and six touchdowns – then signed a three-year, $24 million free-agent contract with Tennessee.
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That’s the shape of the steal: a fourth-round pick who spent three years waiting, then validated every dollar of a free-agent contract the moment he got the opportunity.
Pollard was taken 128th in a draft that included several highly-touted running backs in the first and second rounds. He outlasted most of them and turned his patience into a payday. Memphis to Pro Bowl in four years, via the fourth round.
4. Trevon Diggs – Round 2, Pick 51, 2020
The Cowboys took Diggs in the second round despite some evaluators questioning whether his 6-foot-1 frame worked for corner in the modern NFL.
In 2021, Diggs answered the question with 11 interceptions – the most in the NFL in 40 years – a Pro Bowl selection, and a first-team All-Pro nod. Eleven interceptions. In one season. The last player to have that many was Everson Walls in 1981 – also a Dallas Cowboy.
Diggs cooled off after the injury-shortened 2023 season, which has complicated the narrative, but the 2021 season alone justifies the pick. A second-round corner who led the league in interceptions by a margin that defied explanation is a steal by any definition. The Cowboys found a ball-hawk at the position football doesn’t draft ball-hawks in, and got a season for the history books in return.
5. Tyron Smith – Round 1, Pick 9, 2011
This is the only first-round pick on the list – and it earns its place because of what it returned. Smith was 20 years old when the Cowboys drafted him out of USC, the youngest offensive lineman in the NFL that season. He stepped into the starting lineup immediately and became a perennial All-Pro, one of the most dominant left tackles of the past 15 years.
The steal here isn’t in the round – it’s in the value.
The Cowboys used a top-10 pick on a tackle and got Hall of Fame–caliber production in return. In an era when teams routinely spend first-round picks on offensive linemen who become serviceable starters, Smith became the standard by which left tackles in his era were measured.
Dallas didn’t overpay for a position of need. They identified the best player available and built their offense around him for over a decade. That’s a different kind of steal – not the late-round find, but the pick where you got exactly what a top-10 selection should deliver and so rarely does.
The Cowboys get the criticism for their draft misses – and some of it is deserved. But Prescott in the fourth round, Lawrence in the second, Pollard in the fourth, Diggs in the second, and Smith in the first is a five-pick run that would make any franchise’s all-time list. The problem isn’t that Dallas can’t find players. The problem is that finding them and winning with them have turned out to be different things.
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This story was originally published July 26, 2026 at 5:03 AM.