IRVING, Texas – The Dallas Cowboys believed they added a superstar when they drafted Morris Claiborne.
That’s why they eagerly shipped their top two picks to the St. Louis Rams for the right to move up eight spots and select Claiborne at No. 6 overall. He wasn’t just the top defensive player on Dallas’ draft board. The Cowboys' scouts gave him a higher grade than any cornerback in a draft since Deion Sanders, as owner and general manager Jerry Jones shouted from the Valley Ranch mountaintops that night in 2012.
At this point, it’s humorous to even hear Claiborne’s name in the same sentence as Sanders. Claiborne hasn’t come close to living up to that lofty billing.
“You’ve got to be careful about expectations,” head coach Jason Garrett said. “We want to bring good football players in, and we obviously thought Mo was someone who was one of the better players in that draft at a position that we had a real need to try to address. Mo’s done a lot of good things for us so far. He’s had a battle with some injuries the first couple of years of his career, but we really believe that he’s a developing player and he’s getting better and better and better, the kind of guy at a really critical position in your team we think can play here for a long, long time.
“To reflect back and say, ‘We had these expectations. This is what he’s done,’ I’m not sure that’s a really healthy thing to do. The biggest thing is to come to work every day and get better. He’s certainly tried to do that.”
It’s ridiculous to even ponder where Claiborne ranks among the league’s cornerbacks. The relevant question at Valley Ranch: Is Claiborne is one of the Cowboys’ top three corners?
As usual, Garrett will keep personnel decisions as private as possible, but it’s reasonable to assume that Orlando Scandrick will regain his starting job after being officially reinstated Wednesday. Brandon Carr, coming off perhaps his best game in a Cowboys uniform, is a lock as the other starter.
Who should be the third corner in the Cowboys’ nickel package? If it’s purely about merit, Sterling Moore would be on the field, not Claiborne.
“Sterling Moore’s done a nice job,” Garrett said. “He showed up in the game [Sunday], made a lot of good plays on the ball, was in coverage, made some tackles in the run game, so he’s certainly earned a role on this football team.”
That’s classic Garrett vagueness. The coaches must decide which combination is best for them. Scandrick has always played the slot in the nickel, but are the Cowboys better off leaving him outside and letting Moore stay in that role? Or should they plug Scandrick in the slot and keeping Claiborne outside, as they did last season?
“To be honest with you, I don’t know what’s going to happen when he gets back, how much I’ll play,” said Moore, who graded out at 72 after the coaches’ film review of Sunday’s win, compared to 40 for Claiborne. “I just hope I’ve done enough to tell them I deserve a spot out there; I deserve to get some plays out there and just capitalize on those opportunities when they come.”
Garrett has stressed the staff’s commitment to evaluating players on performance, not pedigree. In other words, Claiborne’s draft stock and the fact that Moore was undrafted and unemployed early last season shouldn’t be part of this conversation.
But business tends to tilt the playing field in these kinds of internal competitions. The Cowboys have an awful lot invested in Claiborne to just leave him on the sideline.