2026 Draft report card: Cowboys earn high grades from most major outlets

The report card has come, and this while this one may not hang on the refrigerator long-term or get slipped into the box of keepsakes in the attic, it likely won't get the Cowboys in any trouble. Scanning some of the major outlets the day after the NFL draft wrapped up, the Cowboys earned good to very good grades from nearly everyone. There was unanimous praise for safety Caleb Downs, especially with Dallas landing him outside the top 10.

And most analysts saw enough upside in edge rusher Malachi Lawrence to forgive the Cowboys for grabbing him a little earlier than pre-draft rankings may have suggested. The rest of the Cowboys' 2026 draft class got mixed reviews, with Jaishawn Barham, Drew Shelton, Devin Moore, LT Overton, and Anthony Smith all being seen as depth pieces with varying degrees of potential as contributors, depending on who was doing the evaluating. And don't forget that the club traded for 49ers linebacker Dee Winters in the middle of the weekend.

That will mean an improvement to the middle level of the Dallas defense and should count as extra credit toward the Cowboys' overall draft score. The result? Final grades that are all tightly bunched in the A-and-B range.

Nobody thought Dallas aced the draft with a perfect mark, but no one gave them anything lower than a B-, either. For most of us, that kind of report card would still have earned us a trip to Red Lobster to celebrate. SI.