The Dallas Cowboys met with seven different quarterbacks in advance of this week's NFL Draft. Of course the team did their due diligence on the top two prospects at the position: Cal's Jared Goff and North Dakota State's Carson Wentz. Before the blockbuster deals at the top of the draft board, Dallas was a potential landing spot for either of the signal-callers. But the Cowboys have also met with lower tier prospects such as Memphis' Paxton Lynch, Penn State's Christian Hackenberg, Michigan State's Connor Cook, NC State's Jacoby Brissett and Mississippi State's Dak Prescott.
While a QB at No. 4 was always a stretch for the Cowboys, grabbing a passer to be a high-upside backup or potential replacement for Tony Romo would make a ton of sense. Romo has missed at least one game in each of the past three seasons, including 12 in 2015. The Cowboys are 1-13 without Romo in that stretch, and the veteran did just turn 36 last week and is coming off a broken collarbone.
Owner and General Manager Jerry Jones has maintained that the Cowboys don't need to draft a QB this year, but he's not ruling it out altogether.
"Certainly not a high enough priority to make a bad decision or a force decision," Jones said at a press conference Monday. "On the other hand, Tony won't play forever, but you can get real problematic if you brought a quarterback in here, developed him, you saw enough in the next three or four years, but he really never got in and played and then there he is. As you know, the most that we can probably sign him for would be five [years] if he were the first pick or four later on, at best keeps your rights to him. Well, he is sitting there and he is in the free agent market. And you have a multi-million dollar decision to make and you really haven't seen him under fire. That could happen. That decision might deal you an awkward place 36 months down the road."
Goff and Wentz are expected to be taken off the board with the first and second pick, respectively. But the Cowboys don't need one of the top prospects in the draft. What they need is someone who can fill in capably should Romo be forced to miss time yet again.
"The bottom line is yes, we could certainly in the right situation there on the board - what is there and what's not there - we could pick a quarterback down from those first two that are logically thought to be picked early," Jones said.
Head Coach Jason Garrett seems open to the idea as he believes this is a solid crop of players at the position.
"I think it's pretty good," Garrett said. "There are some guys at the top of the draft who are certainly intriguing, but I think what's interesting to me about this is that there are guys throughout the draft who are intriguing. I think you can conceivably take a quality quarterback in each of the rounds, and at all different levels of the draft I think there are intriguing and interesting prospects."
Follow Brandon Katz at @Great_Katzby.
