The Curse of Jimmy Smith may officially be broken. Here, a thread on the outrageous *prices* Jerry Jones paid for wideouts and how CeeDee Lamb's drafting brings that valuation process back to sanity.

Let's start with the building of the WR corps for those championship teams (1)

from the Triplet's days. Michael Irvin, the cornerstone, was the 11th overall pick in '88. Jimmy Johnson looked to find him a speedy complement and failed with his initial pick, the workout warrior bust Alexander Wright, whom Jimmy picked in the high 2nd in 1990. Jimmy cut his

losses quickly, using the 2nd 1st rounder the following year to draft Alvin Harper 12th overall. He had his duo, but JJ went for maximum firepower. In the bumper '92 haul, the last draft fortified with Viking picks from the Herschel Walker deal, he used a high 2nd on

Jimmy Smith. Dallas now had a trio to terrorize the NFL but never realized it. Smith spent three injury riddled years in Dallas before the club released him. Amazingly, the Eagles claimed him off waivers and also subsequently waived him. He landed with the expansion Jaguars,

and launched a long career that ended with 862 catches and over 12,000 yards. What's worse for Dallas he was released at precisely the time when Harper left the team in free agency, leaving Irvin as the lone quality receiving threat. Thus began the curse, a series of

missteps where Jerry, now missing Jimmy, would attempt to find Michael his new sidekick. The next major gaffe represented the easiest fix. In the '98 draft the Cowboys owned the 8th overall pick, courtesy of the team's allergic reaction to Barry Switzer's continued reign.

Sitting at 8 was Marshall's Randy Moss, a player they coveted but whose off-field question marks (in tandem with the club's own off-field black eyes from that time) made the normally risk happy Jerry gun shy. He went safe for a change, taking DE Greg Ellis, and Moss slid to

the Vikings, where he would start his own HOF career. Having cut one potential HOFer and passed on another, Jerry now *compounded* the errors by overpaying massively for WR talent. He shipped two 1st round picks to Seattle for Joey Galloway, who promptly tore an ACL in his

Cowboys debut. Those lost picks hastened the end of the Triplets era and the painful walk in the football desert that was the Campo years. Bill Parcells and OC Sean Payton rebuilt with veteran, most notably Terry Glenn, Bill's #1 from his Pats days & Keyshawn Johnson, Bill's

former #1 from his Jets days. Sensing his club was getting close to contention after the bumper '05 draft crop, Jerry pushed Keyshawn out and brought Terrell Owens in, causing some friction with his HC, who left after one year of the circus. The club still looked poised for a

title run with new HC Wade Phillips, but Glenn's knee abandoned him in '07, probably costing Dallas its best chance of that decade. They lost to the Giants in a game where TO had no quality WR help. When the team stuttered in '08, Jerry made a deadline day panic trade, shipping

a 1st and a 3rd rounder to Detroit for Roy Williams. Williams had measurables but had been written off by Mike Martz for erratic effort. He got a big extension in Dallas and resumed his on-off play. He was a net negative and when age caught TO, Dallas started a new decade with

free agent surprise Miles Austin as its only reliable threat. Jerry again paid big for a WR savior, this time in the draft market, again flipping a 1st and a 3rd to move up in the late first to draft Dez Bryant. Bryant came good, really good, but Jerry continued his trend of

paying beyond top dollar for his receiver targets. The last three offseasons have seen a return to value prices and big dividends. Michael Gallup was a 3rd rounder from the 2018 draft, and has improved with each campaign. The Amari Cooper deal was slammed by many at the time,

probably because so many Cowboys fans still had lingering trauma from the Galloway and Williams trades, but the cost of a straight up 1st for a Pro Bowler was by far the cheapest price Dallas paid in any of these post Moss deals and looks like a solid value now. Watching

Lamb, a consensus top 10 pick, fall to 17, reminds of the way Dallas used to stockpile receivers when it was winning titles: rate them smartly and let the board come to you. Now that the team seems to have dropped its bad habit of impulse paying for shiny receivers, perhaps

can realize the same results it did back in its smarter days.

The Curse is over. Long live Jimmy Smith! (And really, he's still very much alive. Long live Jimmy Smith!)