To be fair, I’m not sure the Cowboys drafted Schoonmaker to be an immediate replacement. TE is a notoriously slow developing position for the college to NFL jump.

Go back and look at the all-timer’s rookie years:

Witten: 35-347-1

Gates: 24-389-2

Gonzalez: 33-368-2

Today’s top TEs are not really different:

Kittle: 43-515-2

Andrews: 34-552-3

Goedert: 33-334-4

Sure every now and then you get a Shockey or Pitts but they are outliers.