The Dallas Cowboys drafted Notre Dame offensive lineman Zack Martin with their No. 16 overall pick in the 2014 NFL Draft, passing up on Texas A&M quarterback Johnny Manziel. There were plenty of reasons to explain the Cowboys passing on Manziel, they have Tony Romo at quarterback, they have many other glaring needs, but head coach Jason Garrett offered another.
“The thing you’re concerned about is developing them for somebody else,” Garrett said, via Todd Archer of ESPN.com. “You develop them for two, three, four years and he goes and plays for another football team. We don’t think that’s a worthwhile thing.
“When you feel good about your starter and you feel good about your backups, we feel it’s better to take a position player, a guy we know can contribute on special teams, instead of trying to develop that guy (quarterback).”
Cowboys vice president Stephen Jones also suggested that it was in part because of Brandon Weeden signing with the team before the draft.
“Obviously we think a lot of Brandon Weeden,” Jones said, via the Dallas Morning News. “He got drafted in the first round for a reason. We didn’t quite have him in the first but we had him in the second. The guy has a couple of years under his belt. We’ve kind of got to look at him over the last couple of weeks. We like what we see. That’s a work in progress.”