If the second day of your draft raises eyebrows and has the look of a bust, but your first and third days were good, what grade does that earn a team?
I'm giving the Cowboys an 'E' for Entertaining. Wildly so.
Start at the top. Poor Jalen Ramsey never really had a chance.
The multi-talented defensive back from Florida State was forecast by most to land in Dallas with the fourth pick. And maybe he's going to be a great cover corner or all-Pro safety, but this was no one-on-one matchup.
This was Man vs. Theory. Man vs. Concept. Man vs. The 2014 Season.
Yep, never really had a chance.
The decision to go with Ohio State running back Ezekiel Elliott was far from a no-brainer. But on a team lacking defensive playmakers, what better solution than to turn back the clock, turn the rookie Elliott into DeMarco Murray and keep that defense on the bench for 33 minutes as happened in 2014?
Even if he's not as good as Todd Gurley, the Rams' high first-round pick a year ago, it's a safe bet that barring injury, Elliott outrushes Gurley this season on his way to Rookie of the Year and quite possibly Pro Bowl status simply based on his surroundings.
The Cowboys even tried to delight fans and keep an eye on the future by trading up for Memphis quarterback Paxton Lynch late in the first round. But the Denver Broncos, in need of a quarterback now not later, beat them to the punch.
Still a fine Day One.
What happened Friday was neither inexplicable nor out of character. It was simply one more attempt by the Cowboys to show the football world they're smarter than everyone else. It's an oddly arrogant stance for a team more than 20 years removed from its last trip to an NFC Championship Game.
Before anyone was even speculating where Notre Dame's Jaylon Smith might go-some thought the knee surgery and nerve damage rendered him a certain third day pick-Dallas called his name with the 34th selection, high in the second round.
Feel good stories are great, and Cowboys Owner Jerry Jones loves them. Soon those who tend to applaud everything this team does were telling us how Dr. Dan Cooper, the Cowboys' team physician, performed Smith's surgery and that the club is more privy to his medical details than any other team.
And that may be the case. I've known Cooper for more than 20 years. On a Stars' trip to Vancouver many years ago, he helped me when I told him I thought I was suffering from vertigo or something like it. Of course while checking me out, he was wobbling back and forth to poke fun at me.
But while Cooper has predicted Smith can rid himself of the "foot-drop" condition in six months or so, there are no guarantees the nerve damage related to his major knee surgery will fully go away. Regardless-and this is the larger point-a team with a 36-year-old quarterback coming off a 4-12 season shouldn't be spending a high second-round pick on a player who's nearly certain to sit out the 2016 season.
I understand that Jones says Romo has four or five years left in him. I'm not sure who beyond Jones believes that, and it's a virtual certainty that the team's medical community does not.
Regardless that pick and a fairly ho-hum third-round selection put the Cowboys in need of recovery quickly on Day Three.
And there are reasons to believe they pulled it off.
They started with an undersized power forward from Baltimore. Oh, wait, that's Charles Tapper's high school resume. OU fans know him as a play-making defensive end which is something Dallas is sorely lacking the first month of the coming season due to the suspensions of DeMarcus Lawrence and Randy Gregory.
Then, finally, after failing to trade up for Lynch or land Michigan State's Connor Cook, the Cowboys grabbed Mississippi State quarterback Dak Prescott. How can you go wrong with an MVP from both the Liberty Bowl and the Belk Bowl?
After playing the college spread offense, Prescott has a long, long learning curve ahead of him but the Cowboys have spent an inordinate amount of time with the young man. Every one of these college quarterbacks arrives with considerable risk, and that includes Jared Goff and Carson Wentz taken with the first two picks Thursday night.
Time will tell on that one.
After sitting on the sidelines of free agency following a 4-12 season, are the Cowboys really good enough to compete in 2016 with a high second-round pick and a low fourth-round pick serving as virtual red shirts?
I'd have to bet on that answer being no. But the Elliott pick has a chance to change all that.