Cowboys players land on ESPN’s fictional Domestic Cup rosters

The World Cup has a way of making people think bigger.

ESPN.com senior NFL writer Bill Barnwell channeled that energy into a made-up domestic tournament, building 30-man NFL rosters based on where each player attended high school.

Barnwell’s fictional Domestic Cup of American Football split the country into eight regions and played the bracket all the way to a champion.

Dallas had eight players land across five of those eight regions and Cowboys players didn’t just make the cut. Several of them earned starts.

Dak Prescott grabbed the starting quarterback job for the Southwest, a region covering Louisiana, Arkansas, Oklahoma, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, Arizona and Utah.

Barnwell puts Prescott atop a roster that’s loaded with offensive weapons, but he describes what surrounds those skill positions on the defensive side as the weakest defensive line in the entire field.

Those gaps on defense are why Barnwell eliminated the Southwest before the final four, despite the region’s offensive firepower.

In the Southeast, drawing players from Alabama, Georgia, Mississippi, Kentucky and Tennessee, Cowboys receiver George Pickens earned a starting wideout role.

Barnwell identifies Pickens as an Alabama high school product and slots him into one of the deeper receiving groups in the tournament.

Pickens’ path to a starting spot wasn’t easy; this is a region loaded with wideout talent.

Cowboys defensive tackle Quinnen Williams made the Southeast roster and slots into a DT group Barnwell calls one of the most dominant in the competition.

He points out that the Southeast’s second-string defensive tackle unit would start for most other regions in the field, which tells you how deep the interior line runs.

The Southeast used that depth to advance past the Midwest in the semifinals.

Pickens and Williams couldn’t finish the job in the championship game, though. Barnwell gave Texas the edge over the Southeast in the final, pointing to veteran leadership and receiver depth as the deciding factors.

The Southeast fell short.

Cowboys anchor Texas championship run

CeeDee Lamb earned a starting wideout spot in the Texas region on a receiving corps Barnwell says is one of the most dangerous in the competition.

Texas didn’t struggle to fill out its receiver room, and Lamb holds down a starting role in a group of established NFL wideouts.

Guard Tyler Smith also made Texas’s 30-man roster on an offensive line Barnwell calls the best in the entire field. He notes real injury concerns up front.

Several linemen are coming off significant missed time or nearing the end of their careers, but the ceiling of this unit is higher than any other region’s front five.

Texas took down Florida in the semifinal before turning its attention to the Southeast in the title game.

Barnwell picked Texas to win the fictional Domestic Cup of American Football championship, which means Lamb and Tyler Smith take home the made-up hardware and get to call themselves Domestic Cup champions.

Out west, defensive tackle Kenny Clark made California’s 30-man roster alongside punter Bryan Anger.

Barnwell said California doesn’t have elite talent along either line of scrimmage compared to the top contenders and eliminated the state before the final four.

Cornerback Cobie Durant landed on the South Atlantic roster, which covers Maryland, North Carolina, South Carolina, Virginia, West Virginia and Washington D.C.

Barnwell eliminated the South Atlantic before the semifinals as well.

When it’s all added up, eight Cowboys players made Barnwell’s regional rosters spanning five different regions.

Two of them — Lamb and Tyler Smith — get to claim the fictional championship.

Pickens and Williams came the closest to matching them, getting the Southeast to the title game before Texas closed the door.

Key takeaways

CeeDee Lamb and Tyler Smith both landed on the Texas regional roster, and Barnwell named Texas the Domestic Cup of American Football champion, giving both Cowboys players the fictional title

Dak Prescott earned the starting quarterback role for the Southwest, but Barnwell eliminated the region before the final four because of what he calls the weakest defensive line in the competition

George Pickens and Quinnen Williams both earned starting spots for the Southeast, which advanced to the championship game before falling to Texas