3. Marcus Spears, DE, 2005
Before his current career as one of the many talking heads for ESPN’s NFL coverage, Marcus Spears was taken 20th overall by the Cowboys in the 2005 draft following a stellar collegiate career at LSU.
Spears was solid at times, but he ultimately never lived up to his first-round status, tallying 226 total tackles and 10.0 sacks during his eight-year run with the Cowboys. He closed out his playing career with one season for the Baltimore Ravens.
2. Ebenezer Ekuban, 1999
Six years before Spears, the Cowboys used the 20th overall selection in the 1999 draft on defensive end Ebenezer Ekuban, who’d earned First-Team All-ACC honors and a Second-Team All-American selection at North Carolina in 1998.
The hope was that Ekuban, who they actually traded up two spots to get, would come in and start opposite his former UNC teammate Greg Ellis, who Dallas drafted a year earlier at No. 8 overall. But things never really worked out that way.
Ekuban had a solid rookie campaign with 2.5 sacks, and he upped that total to 6.5 in 2000. But an injury limited him to just one game in 2001, and he just wasn’t the same player over the next two seasons, recording just 3.5 sacks.
He regained his form after signing with the Cleveland Browns, posting a career-high 8.0 sacks in 2004, and then racked up 16.0 sacks in three seasons with the Denver Broncos before calling it a career.