Cowboys’ Jones: Johnny Manziel will have great career, still best decision was to pass
By Mike Dyce
When the Dallas Cowboys No. 16 overall pick came up and Texas A&M quarterback Johnny Manziel was still on the board, some expected owner and general manager Jerry Jones to take him. Jones was able to hold off temptation and made a team decision to bring in Notre Dame offensive lineman Zack Martin instead.
“I’m sure Johnny Manziel is going to have a great career,” Cowboys chief operating officer Stephen Jones said, via Jon Machota of the Dallas Morning News. “We wish him nothing but the best, but there’s no doubt in my mind, we made the very best decision we could for the Cowboys in terms of what is going to help us get to a Super Bowl the soonest.”
The younger Jones elaborated on the decision to pass on Manziel, and it starts with faith in current quarterback Tony Romo.
“We just felt like at the end of the day, as talented as he was, and we had him high on our board in the first round, but we have a quarterback, a great one, in place in Tony Romo,” Jones said. “We had enough confidence to guarantee him almost $50 million on an almost $20 million extension. And that extension starts this year. We really made the ultimate decision, Jerry [Jones] did, that it was in our best interest to put players around Tony to make him even better and give him a shot to go win a Super Bowl, which is what everybody’s goal is in this organization. We certainly felt like we did that in Zack Martin.”