The Dallas Cowboys tried frantically to jump back into the first-round and draft Memphis passer Paxton Lynch to be Tony Romo's heir apparent. Alas, it wasn't meant to be, as the Denver Broncos swooped in and picked Jerry Jones' guy. In the fourth-round, Dallas selected Dak Prescott, who does possess some impressive physical tools, but he doesn't project to be Romo's full-time replacement.
No, the Cowboys (who are 1-13 without Romo over the last five seasons) are still looking for their future franchise QB as the increasingly brittle Romo enters his age 36 season. Perhaps they'll get their man in the 2017 NFL Draft.
Among a crowded crop of quarterbacks the Cowboys can choose from, Minnesota's Mitch Leidner makes some sense next year. As of right now, he is projected to be the third-ranked QB in the class behind Clemson's Deshaun Watson and Miami's Brad Kaaya, though that very well may change over the next 12 months.
Leidner has impressive size at 6-foot-4 and 236 pounds. His stats aren't eye popping - 59.5 completion rate, 2,701 passing yards, 14 touchdowns, 11 interceptions - but his game has been compared to recent draft risers such as Blake Bortles and Carson Wentz. Physically, Leidner has what you're looking for, and that was good enough to get Christian Hackenberg drafted in the second-round this year despite similar production.
Prescott will be allowed to develop behind Romo and will likely be expected to start this year should Romo be sidelined by injury. However, the pounding he took this past year took a toll on his pocket presence and long game. He's got upside, but there's also no guarantee that he'll develop into more than a backup. With Romo turning 37 next year, is that a risk that Jones and company are really willing to take?
Draft projections such as these so early in the process rarely turn out to be accurate. It's possible that the Cowboys won't be in a position to draft Leidner, and it's possible that Leidner's play doesn't improve this year and he's no longer considered a first-round talent. We don't know.
But we do know that the Cowboys are still thinking about their long-term future, and we do know that Jones tried very hard to draft a QB in round one this year. So if we had to guess based on the information available to us today, we'd say that Leidner makes sense in 2017.
Follow Brandon Katz at @Great_Katzby
