Bob Sturm

If you know me, you’re aware that I am not the world’s biggest fan of the mock draft. If we don’t know what one team is actually going to do, how the heck are we supposed to know what 32 teams are going to do? Nevertheless, people seem to enjoy the general premise of “war games” and the way we play the hypotheticals of what could happen, what might happen and most certainly what won’t happen. So, a time or two when we get to the one-month-to-go mark, I will grab a simulator and play it out for t…

The entire month of March has nearly come and gone. We have no resolution about many weighty matters — and are still in some manner of limbo — but, the seem in good shape to sit back and build their final draft board with visits and interviews as well as pro-day data. They are in a great spot where I would love to find a better tight end and a running back, but they don’t seem to have a major need. By the way, if you missed this week’s mock draft, it is my first of the season — . I have to a…

I was able to dig into a few topics this week with colleagues and friends about the and there was one in particular that I thought I would push out as this week’s Cowboys Riffing and see what you thought about it. It was a conversation with my buddy of The Athletic who is awesome at what he does. Ted was working on a story that as the Chargers are preparing to enter into their own era and are rightfully excited about it. This piece details what they hope that brings to their young QB and the…

Today, the can get closer or further from the Super Bowl. For there is no more important weekend on the calendar for that exercise than the weekend. Some sports definitely have a similar weighting of importance on drafting the next class of young prospects, but none of them immediately see the first fruits like the football world. Heck, some sports have no draft at all — as our friends in the world soccer (football) stage simply find that sort of player distribution to be sports socialism. Th…

We can finally scratch it off the list. After we have spent years detailing how the Cowboys’ front office does not believe in taking defensive tackles in Round 1 and how famously former DL coach Rod Marinelli once actually argued in the war room against taking a player (Florida’s Sharrif Floyd in 2013) at his position that high because he believed you can coach up lesser players and he preferred that route. Trust me, in all of our years covering the draft, we do not recall a time where a positio…

One of my favorite moments in 25 years of covering the Dallas Cowboys happened this weekend. But, first, allow me a small moment of expository to explain and set this up properly. The Cowboys are very much a family business — a very, very big one. But make no mistake, everything they do is operated like a family-owned restaurant where dad grew this thing for decades and now the kids are all over the place. Family meetings replaced board meetings and unless you were at Christmas morning, you prob…

The Athletic has live coverage of in action. This week’s riffing was more about finally getting another project crossed off the list and showing you the results you helped me put together on something I started Jan. 28. Another way to say that date is that was six days after the season ended in Santa Clara, Calif., against the , so you can bet my attitude was probably kicking it a bit too negative at the time. Advertisement That said, I do love putting together things like this because it helps…

There was a time as kids where you could learn an entire roster of players on your favorite team with ease. These guys seemed to stay for years and when you bought the poster of the 1978 and would stare at it and have a familiarity that was hard to mistake. I have a good friend who still can recite the entire roster by heart of a team that played 45 years ago. Advertisement But, the was different back then. Players had no ability to move in free agency and teams pretty much had you on their ro…

Starting a new week allows us to review a bit more of the responses from last week’s rookie minicamp, where we finally got to hear what new offensive coordinator Brian Schottenheimer had to say. Granted, there hasn’t been much written about him from this desk, partly because he is not nearly as leveraged into the masterminding of things moving forward as Kellen Moore. This could evolve and change — including some already projecting when Schottenheimer will just take over the play calling on Sund…

There is nothing that football fans love more than “new” to energize them. New draft picks, new signings, maybe even a new coach. We know old doesn’t work because we have tried the old stuff and it was too frustrating. Please, give us new. Old? Please, waiter, take this away. I am done with it. This player is too old and too expensive. We have seen what he has done and, to quote nearly everyone: “He isn’t getting any younger.” Advertisement Well, thank you for that top-shelf analysis. This is wh…