With the 45th pick of Pride of Detroit's 2012 NFL mock draft, the Dallas Cowboys select Marshall defensive end/linebacker Vinny Curry. Jerry Mallory is serving as the Cowboys' general manager, and his reasoning for the pick is below.

We are more than comfortable on offense. We have proven weapons in Tony Romo, Miles Austin and Jason Witten and have only scratched the surface with Dez Bryant and DeMarco Murray. That said, we see more holes on defense, so we wanted to address that early in this draft.

We loved the disruption Dontari Poe gives us up the middle. Now we add much needed edge-rush talent with Curry. We are thrilled he falls to us in this round, and we ran to send this pick in. We had Curry rated on par with rushers we looked at for the first round (like Michael Brockers).

We need more balance with our pass rush. We rely too heavily on DeMarcus Ware. Ware will get doubled and receive the most attention probably for the rest of his career. Curry is used to double teams and will have fun using his speed and strength in one-on-one scenarios. Chances are he will have one, if not both advantages over his blocker (strength and speed).

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Check out the 2012 Pride of Detroit Community Mock Draft tracker for a look at all of the picks.

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