The Cowboys will be one of the teams, as usual, with the most eyes on them when the NFL draft comes in April. Dallas has several positions that they need to address if they want to end the 26-year drought of not making it to the NFC Championship game.

Among the top needs for the Cowboys are upgrading left guard and center as well as edge rusher. However, NFL.com media analyst Daniel Jeremiah has the Cowboys bolstering another position early, linebacker. In his latest mock draft, he has 2021 Butkus Award winner Nakobe Dean out of Georgia going to Dallas with the 24th overall pick.

"Dean would be the perfect middle linebacker for the Cowboys. He can direct traffic, provide leadership and free up Micah Parsons to be used as a pass rusher."

Dean scouting report via Drae Harris of The Draft Network:

"Nakobe Dean won the 2021 Butkus Award as the nation’s best linebacker. He is a very good reactive athlete with regard to quickness and agility. He affects the passing game in a variety of ways. He can blitz inside and demonstrates very good closing quickness to the quarterback. He gets good depth in his zone drops while also showing the ability to cover running backs with ease. In the run game, he is very instinctive in the box. His team-leading TFL number speaks to the downhill, instinctive, and decisive effort he plays with. He uses his good quickness to defeat linemen and beat them to the spot. He also does a good job shooting gaps to disrupt plays in the backfield. He can overrun plays when he doesn’t come to balance as a tackler, which causes him to miss tackles. When linemen are able to engage with him at the second level, continuing to improve at shedding inside will benefit him. Learning to consistently beat linemen with speed, agility, instincts, or stack/shedding will greatly benefit him as well. He excels, however, when plays are run away from him. Ultimately, this is a three-down linebacker who will maximize his skill set if he is playing on the weak-side in a 4-3 scheme. This player’s decisiveness, instincts, and lateral quickness are reminiscent of Baltimore Ravens linebacker Patrick Queen."

Outside of All-Pro Micah Parsons, the Cowboys are thin at linebacker. Leighton Vander Esch didn't get his fifth-year option picked up. Keanu Neal, Luke Gifford, and Francis Bernard are all free agents. So, that leaves Jabril Cox, who suffered a torn ACL in October, as the only viable option at linebacker besides Parsons, and makes taking Dean to strengthen the position the smart route to go.

Dean matches up well against running backs in pass coverage due to his speed and can also rush the passer as evidenced by his six sacks for the Bulldogs in 2021. That means Dean can provide more pressure on the quarterback with Parsons or drop back into coverage on third downs with the aforementioned Cox whose skills against the pass may be his strongest attribute.

Possessing similar sideline to sideline quickness as Parsons, Dean is excellent against the run as well, making him the complete package as a three-down linebacker who would be a Day 1 starter for the Cowboys.

If Dean is still on the board when the Cowboys make their first-round selection, he should be a no-brainer.

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