Dallas Cowboys were committed to Tony Romo’s succession plan in draft

Jerry Jones didn’t sleep well Thursday night.

The Dallas Cowboys owner couldn’t get over missing out on a possible trade back into the first round for Memphis quarterback Paxton Lynch. After the draft, he even wished he would have overpaid Seattle for the 26th overall pick.

“When I look back on my life, I overpaid for my big successes every time,” Jones said. “And when I tried to get a bargain, get it a little cheaper or get a better deal on it, I ended up usually either getting it and not happy I got it. Or missing it.

“And I probably should have overpaid here.”

Jones didn’t get to bed until about 3 a.m. that night and woke up at 6 a.m. He said before the morning was over, he had talked with six people about how he screwed it up.

“I was still mad about it,” Jones said. “Actually thought we had it done.”

That is a glimpse into how serious Jones and the Dallas Cowboys were about finding a developmental quarterback with Tony Romo getting into the twilight years of his career.

The Cowboys made another push Saturday to get in position to draft Michigan State’s Connor Cook, but to no avail. Jones won’t be losing sleep over that, though.

The Cowboys found their man with their second pick in the fourth round, snagging Mississippi State’s Dak Prescott. Jones and the Cowboys feel Prescott has the makings to become an NFL starter with a few years of grooming under the coaching staff and Romo.

“I see a heady player [in Prescott],” Jones said. “I see a very heady player. I see an intelligent player. I see a player that has a chance to add some to his game that isn’t just a prototype fit for this offense. You may have to put some bells and whistles in there.”

More than that, Jones feels it’s important that the Cowboys found a developmental quarterback who could learn under Romo. He pointed to the success Green Bay’s Aaron Rodgers has had after spending a few seasons under Hall of Famer Brett Favre.

Jones believes that type of tutelage is invaluable, particularly for a young quarterback such as Prescott.

“I like his upside here,” Jones said. “Coming in here and learning from Tony I think is big. It can be osmosis. I don’t expect Tony to be out here having midnight sessions with him, but he’ll learn. Rodgers benefited from Favre. He saw things in Favre’s game that I’m sure could complement what he’s doing.”

This is a change in how the Cowboys essentially abandoned the quarterback position throughout the draft in recent years. Prescott is the first quarterback they’ve taken since Texas A&M’s Stephen McGee in 2009.

Maybe it had to do with Romo turning 36 on April 21 and coming off a season in which he fractured his left collarbone twice. In the 12 games Romo missed, three backups combined to go 1-11.

If the Cowboys hadn’t learned their lesson from last season, it’s fair to wonder if they ever would have. This draft reinforces that, and they’ve landed a quarterback they’ve been intrigued by throughout the process.

They coached opposite of Prescott during the Senior Bowl, watching him take MVP honors during the game. They then met with him multiple times and flew him out to Valley Ranch in the weeks leading up to the draft.

“Obviously we value the quarterback position,” coach Jason Garrett said. “We wanted to get a young, developmental guy in here, and he was a guy that we really liked as a person. We liked him a lot as a player. Highly endorsed by everybody at Mississippi State. His career speaks for itself, and there is a lot to like about this guy. A developmental quarterback that we think is going to fit in well to our system.”

A DUI arrest in early March raised some questions about Prescott, but the Cowboys were able to look past that. In the end, they feel he has the “it” factor to succeed at the next level.

“We are totally committed to giving him every opportunity to develop,” Jones said. “He is a guy that my assessment of him, you want him to do it because he has all the intangibles. It was about the future. You’re thinking about the future here. From my perspective, it’s a good time to inject him, his skill level, what he’s about, into our staff.”

Prescott, of course, is happy to be pegged as a possible successor to Romo. He had a stellar college career with more than 9,000 passing yards and 2,500 rushing yards, and is ready to translate that success in the pros.

“Romo wins and I win,” Prescott said. “I think that’s the biggest thing you can take from the quarterback’s position, the biggest takeaway. He goes out there and he wins a lot of games and always has the Cowboys in position to win a game. I felt like I did the same thing in college.

“To come to the Cowboys and learn under him will be exciting.”

This story was originally published May 1, 2016 at 3:55 PM with the headline "Dallas Cowboys were committed to Tony Romo’s succession plan in draft."