Why top-30 national visits are so important to Cowboys’ draft process

FRISCO, Texas — When the Dallas Cowboys took Mazi Smith with the 26th pick in the NFL draft, the Michigan defensive tackle heard congratulations from owner and general manager Jerry Jones and coach Mike McCarthy over the phone.

There was one part of the conversation between McCarthy and the newest defender that stood out.

“You crushed it in your visit here,” the coach said.

When Smith first walked into The Star in early April as one of the Cowboys’ 30 national visitors, he was immediately impressed.

“First of all, there’s a lot of money in here,” Smith joked.

But over the two days, everything about the Cowboys started to grow on him.

“We just chopped it up with the coaches and got to just meet everybody and get a feel that it was pretty relaxed,” Smith said. “After they kept going, I was like ‘OK, this might be real.’ Then I got to meet Mr. Jones. I was like ‘Oh, this is real.’ I left there feeling like I just left the powerhouse of the NFL, so it was great.”

Smith was the first of four draft picks who were among the 30 visitors over the seven rounds.

The Cowboys hosted and drafted Smith, linebacker DeMarvion Overshown (Round 3), defensive lineman Viliami Fehoko (Round 4) and cornerback Eric Scott Jr. (Round 6). Among their undrafted agreements is Liberty pass-rusher Durrell Johnson, who was also a visitor. And that does not include their sixth-round pick, running back Deuce Vaughn, whose father, Chris, is the team’s assistant director of college scouting.

It’s not a new phenomenon.

The Cowboys’ top pick in all but four years since 2004 has been a pre-draft visitor — on either national or Dallas Day, with DeMarcus Ware (2005), Morris Claiborne (2012), CeeDee Lamb (2020) and Tyler Smith (2022) not visiting. Lamb was prevented from making pre-draft visits because of the COVID-19 pandemic. In 2021, Micah Parsons made a virtual visit.

It’s not just first-round picks. In 2022, the Cowboys hosted and then drafted defensive end Sam Williams, cornerback DaRon Bland and linebacker Devin Harper. They also signed running back Malik Davis and safety Markquese Bell as undrafted free agents after visits.

“We’re very strategic in how we bring guys in,” executive vice president Stephen Jones said. “We bring in a few guys just in case they were to drop, that you know they’re probably not going to … There’s a lot of detail that goes into that and lot of us wanting to get to know them.”

The two-day visits do not include a workout — that is against the rules — but they have everything else. The first stop is a dinner in the Quarterback Lounge inside the Cowboy Club at The Star.

“Just a relaxed environment, get them talk about themselves or talk about what things they like, they don’t like,” vice president of player personnel Will McClay said. “They’re meeting a bunch of people.”

The players meet with Jerry and Stephen Jones, McClay, director of college scouting Mitch LaPoint, other scouts, McCarthy, coordinators Dan Quinn, Brian Schottenheimer and John Fassel, plus their position coaches.

In addition, they meet with the team’s player program group, a psychologist, the medical team and security.

“All of these people within our organization get to meet them, touch them, so we’ve got a great deal of experience with all of those people and all of the players,” McClay said, “and they can tell you this and this, and we put it all together.”

No detail is too small, and the evaluation starts from the time the player arrives at the airport.

“Whoever picks them up, I’ll ask, ‘Hey, how did he behave walking through the airport? What’s the interaction?’ because you’re looking for Eddie Haskell,” McCarthy said. “Those types of things. Just the whole process of having these guys come in, interact, it’s very helpful information.”

McCarthy said the Cowboys use the 30 visits differently than his previous employer, the Green Bay Packers.

“The purpose more in Green Bay was if you had guys that you didn’t have a really clean medical on, that was the priority,” McCarthy said. “Not that that’s wrong, it’s just a different approach. Here it’s the 360 [degree] scope and we’re a little more open to who we’re really interested in.”

Overshown said he had six other national visits: Washington Commanders, Miami Dolphins, Atlanta Falcons, Houston Texans, Arizona Cardinals and Denver Broncos. Fehoko said he made visits to the New England Patriots and Tennessee Titans. Scott said he visited the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, New Orleans Saints, Indianapolis Colts and Minnesota Vikings.

Maybe it was because the Cowboys ended up selecting them, but they all had the same feeling during their pre-draft visits.

“When I first got there from the dinner all the way to the lunch before I left to go somewhere else, it felt like a family vacation,” Overshown said. “It didn’t feel like a business trip. We watched a little film, but after that, it was more me talking about my background, talking about the family, talking about what to expect my rookie season.”

Said Scott, “It’s a lot of the interactions. When I was out there for my visits, I was paying attention to how people interacted with each other. And when I was at Dallas, the interactions even just between the support staff and the coaches and the players, it’s all a family environment. Everybody loves everybody, and I want to be a part of that.”

Fehoko even parroted a Dak Prescott-ism when discussing his visit.

“The culture, the brotherhood,” he said. “Walking around with the staff and conversations with the coaches, I can tell that the Dallas Cowboys are all about winning.”