The NFL's draft process is wrong; how to fix it for Cowboys and all teams

We have slid just inside the two-month barrier. The NFL draft is coming to town for the first time ever. My only question is why we have to wait so darned long.

AT&T Stadium will host the three-day affair -- one that has become the second-biggest event on the NFL's calendar behind the Super Bowl and one of the real mega-events in this country, regardless of its true value -- from April 26-28. More than 100,000 fans representing every state have registered for a chance to attend.

The Cowboys have many holes to fill. So why can't they fill them...maybe next week?

I don't understand why the NFL scouting combine, which should wrap up the draft process but basically ignites it, is now a month after the Super Bowl. But I really don't get why the draft is four months after the end of the regular season and nearly three months after the Super Bowl.

It wasn't always this way. Those of you anywhere close to my age bracket recall the Cowboys losing the Blooper Bowl, their first trip to the Super Bowl following the 1970 season. The team didn't have a lot of time to dwell on all the miscues and suspect calls in a 16-13 loss to the Baltimore Colts. The draft was 11 days later.

If that seems preposterous, consider the fact that if there's a Game 7 in the NBA Finals, it will be played June 17. The NBA draft is June 21. The dates for the NHL draft (also to be hosted in Dallas -- a column for another day -- from June 22-23) are similarly snug with the final drop of the puck for the Stanley Cup.

These leagues get an important element right, one I would say I'm surprised the NFLPA hasn't mastered except that that organization has mastered so little. You draft first, then comes free agency.

The NFL does the reverse, and I believe it penalizes veteran players in favor of the massive emphasis this league and the media that covers it places on the untested rookies. You can argue that doing things in this order allowed the Cowboys to recover from all those free-agency losses in the secondary last year. After Brandon Carr, Mo Claiborne and Barry Church signed with other clubs, the Cowboys selected Chidobe Awuzie, Jourdan Lewis and Xavier Woods in the draft.

I would argue, for one, that you don't truly replace veterans with high-to-mid-round rookie draft picks, and I think the results of this past season illustrate that. But if teams truly went about the business of drafting best players available -- a concept they all preach and basically never practice -- it would only make sense to draft first, then fill the roster needs remaining in free agency with players they have actually seen perform at the highest level.

To do it the current way is a guessing game that more often than not leads to disappointment, not just in Dallas but for all teams.

If you want to argue that it takes time to not only check out the players but attend all the pro-day performances around college campuses, I would remind you that MLB holds its draft in mid-season and that includes the enormous difficulty of having to evaluate high school players alongside college athletes. The NBA and NHL basically scout the world in their process that they manage to roll out less than a week after the end of the season.

The top-dollar NFL free agents are always going to get their money. It doesn't matter what calendar you use. But I think other veterans would fare better if teams could see all the positions they were unable to fill in the draft before entering the free-agent signing period. It would also help if teams took a more realistic look at rookie talent rather than the economic look they all prefer, the one that says these guys are cheap and we can live with their mistakes.

Regardless, I'm tired of waiting. When I was a kid, the draft -- which you mostly just read about in the newspaper the morning after -- took place in January. Even when the Cowboys landed the fabled "Dirty Dozen" led by Randy White in 1975, that was the case.

I'll survive these next two months. There are certainly other events on the landscape. I just don't understand the need to wait until baseball season is underway and the NBA and NHL playoffs are in full bloom before getting around to the selection of college football players.

Three months of mock drafts is at least two too many.