IRVING, Texas – Having conducted some of their 30 allotted national pre-draft visits this week, the Cowboys on Friday turned their attention to nearly 50 invited prospects with local high school or college ties during their annual Dallas Day workout at team facilities.
Like the Cowboys' national visits, Dallas Day features a combination of draft locks and draft hopefuls. Invited names that have filtered out include heralded Boise State running back Jay Ajayi, a native of Dallas suburb Frisco; TCU cornerback Kevin White; Stanford wide receiver Ty Montgomery; Oklahoma offensive linemen Daryl Williams and Adam Shead; and BYU wide receiver Ross Apo.
Ajayi is generally considered one of the top five running backs in this year's class, and the Cowboys could be looking closely at selecting DeMarco Murray's long-term replacement in the first two days of the draft. Cowboys owner/general manager Jerry Jones has said the team would visit with the top-ranked backs, which would include the likes of Ajayi, Todd Gurley, Melvin Gordon and Tevin Coleman, among others.
Over the years the club has drafted Dallas Day participants or signed them as rookie free agents. Wide receiver Patrick Crayton and cornerback Jacques Reeves were selected in the seventh round in 2004 and played a combined 10 seasons in Dallas. Running backs Tyson Thompson (2005) and Phillip Tanner (2011) eventually made the team as undrafted free agents.
Wide receiver Cole Beasley and running back Lance Dunbar are current Dallas Day alumni. Both signed as undrafted free agents after the 2012 draft; Beasley made the team out of training camp and Dunbar was signed from the practice squad by midseason.
The Cowboys own seven picks in the April 30-May 2 draft: one pick each in Rounds 1-5 and a second pick in Round 7 as part of last year's trade for linebacker Rolando McClain.
[embeddedad0]
