Golden: The Cowboys' sixth-round pick of running back Deuce Vaughn gave us all the feels
The Dallas Cowboys got the tears and the playmaker.
All in a matter of seconds.
The Cowboys are routinely one of the most popular teams — and most hated, there is no gray area — in the NFL, but even the fiercest of haters were guilty of wiping their eyes after watching the exchange between assistant director of college scouting Chris Vaughn — a former Texas defensive assistant — and his son on Saturday.
When owner Jerry Jones and vice president Stephen Jones drafted Kansas State running back Deuce Vaughn, the NFL’s biggest family operation took on another father-son combo.
Vaughn, a Cedar Ridge product who gave the Texas Longhorns fits over the last four seasons, could have never imagined that he would be playing for the team he grew up watching in person. Neither could his dad, who struggled to contain his emotions when he was handed the phone to speak with his progeny from the Cowboys' war room.
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“Look here, man, do you want to come to work with me next week?” Vaughn asked his son, his voice cracking with joy, pride and, most of all, love.
“I wouldn’t mind that at all,” his son answered.
With all due respect to Tom Brady, this was the coolest sixth-round selection in league history. The No. 212 overall pick came as a slight surprise because the Cowboys were in the market for a hammer to complement Tony Pollard, who will take over for the departed Ezekiel Elliott if he is ready to go from leg surgery.
Vaughn, a 5-foot-5, 179 reincarnation of K-State legend Darren Sproles, is far from a bruiser, but he's one hell of a football player, one the Cowboys decided not to pass up.
Yeah, Jerrah is the league’s resident circus barker, but this time he actually checked off a couple of boxes. It was a feel-good story that will actually pay dividends on the field. The Cowboys now have a couple of running backs who can catch the ball out of the backfield, then make the first tackler miss with the ability to take it the distance.
Who's Dallas' short-yardage back now?
Figure it out later: There is ample time for Dallas to find a short-yardage chain mover in free agency. Latavius Murray would have been a nice addition, but he signed a one-year deal with the Buffalo Bills.
Then there’s Elliott. The seven-year starter was let go in the offseason, but Jerry said on the team’s website that Zeke could still be an option.
“We haven't made a decision,” Jones said. “We've obviously drafted a running back, a little different style than Zeke, but it doesn't change. For us, as far as our interest in Zeke, nothing we did today changes that.”
Never a dull moment in Jerry World.
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Is Disch-Falk still in play for a regional?
Home would be sweet: If the Texas Longhorns end up hosting an NCAA baseball regional, then we will look at left fielder Porter Brown’s ninth-inning throw on Sunday, April 30, as the play that turned it all around.
On a day when right-hander Lebarron Johnson turned in the most important 6⅓ innings of his college career, the Horns secured a crucial series win over TCU after the left-handed Brown snagged a line drive in shallow left field and uncorked a laser to catcher Garret Guillemette, who tagged out Karson Bowen in plenty of time.
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The Horns have shown some nice resilience after that 0-3 no-show at home to Oklahoma and now the impossible is all of a sudden possible.
LeBron vs. Steph: the last dance?
One more time: Stephen Curry and LeBron James have met four times in the postseason — Curry owns a 3-1 edge in series and a 15-7 advantage in games — with all matchups having come in the NBA Finals when James was with the Cleveland Cavaliers. Tuesday’s opener of the Western Conference semifinals could be the final series pitting the best point guard of this generation against the best small forward in history.
Sports are never better than when generational talents are knocking heads, so these next five to seven games should fall under the appreciate-them-while-you-can category.
Curry’s sometimes careless ball handling — his 206 turnovers were the 14th most in the league during the regular season — can drive head coach Steve Kerr nuts, but there is no disputing that he's on the short list of best big-game players in league history. That said, for every one miscue there are a dozen highlight reel plays that make him the all-time great that he is.
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The Chef single-handedly cooked Sacramento in an unlikely Game 7 road win, setting up the semifinal against LeBron’s Lakers. No player 35 or holder had scored 50 points in a Game 7 until Curry shut down that cool purple beam outside Golden 1 Center with an array of drives, dishes and signature 3-pointers.
My friend Mike Freeman of USA Today tweeted asking his followers to list their three favorite athletes we’ve ever witnessed in person. Curry is on my list, along with Vince Young and Deion Sanders.
Like him or not, Curry, and LeBron for that matter, are on the short list of players I would pay good money to see in person. James is 38 and playing like he's 25. He crushed Memphis' soul with a 20-20 under legs that appear alarmingly fresh at this time of the year. I give the Lakers the edge in the series, but only if Anthony Davis plays up to his star quality.
Enjoy the arts and hope for seven games. We will never see the likes of these two again.
Succession is delightfully hateful
Flawed but fabulous: This is off the sports path, but one note on the HBO series "Succession."
It’s the best series on television with some of the absolute worst people on television. None of the four Logan children, Tom, Greg or the bigwigs that work for them have any redeeming human qualities. They’re also out of their league in their dealings with corporate monster Lukas Mattson.
Somehow, it’s must-watch, sort of like what we got from fellow mega hits like "The Sopranos" and "Breaking Bad."
This final season has been one delightful train wreck.
I will hate to see it go.
This article originally appeared on Austin American-Statesman: The Dallas Cowboys draft Round Rock's Deuce Vaughn, son of team scout
