Jerry Jones is talking about Johnny Manziel again.
To be fair, speaking this week on 105.3-FM The Fan’s Shan and RJ show, Jones didn’t mention Manziel by name. But he reminded all those who have questioned the team’s handling of the quarterback position behind Tony Romo that he has been thinking about the future of the position, and cited the fact that the team almost drafted Manziel in 2014 as evidence of this.
Manziel hasn’t exactly blossomed into a star in his first two years in Cleveland, while Zack Martin—the right guard out of Notre Dame the Cowboys took instead of Manziel—has. He has now been named to the Pro Bowl in each of his first two seasons. But Jones apparently still thinks about that draft.
"Well, two years ago the same dynamic was there," Jones said, per the Dallas Morning News. "What happens in the future when and if we don't have [Tony] Romo? I'll be very candid with you, certainly a backup to Romo, we still probably would have had a veteran in the mix at some point two years ago. But there's no doubt, when a top player on your board, and he certainly was there in our top five or six players, when he drops down there and you're drafting in the twenties or some place in that range, and you're in our situation, you have to look at our quarterback league, because that's how [Ben] Roethlisberger happens, that's how they get down there. [Brandon] Weeden was, of course, Cleveland's move like that, and it didn't pan out.
"And that's the other thing I've got to mention, just because they're drafted in the first round doesn't mean they pan out. I think they got a better chance to pan out, but not necessarily do they pan out.
"So, yeah, we've been thinking about it, and thinking about when the time to, the confluence of the opportunity in the draft as well as the right player comes along. As you know, I was a committee of one that year [2014] that was thinking that we could make it—I don't want to even go into names. I don't want to get involved in that. The bottom line is, we should've been thinking—that’s my job really, if it's anybody's job. I've got to be looking ahead like that, really ahead like that. So I'd say not having a young, on the come, very talented, obvious quarterback that could be coming in and getting snaps and possibly winning ballgames, that's on me because we passed on it two years ago."
