Cowboys owner and General Manager Jerry Jones says he doesn’t need a new starting quarterback this year, next year or the year after that.
Jones said at the Scouting Combine that he’s expecting Tony Romo to start for the Cowboys until at least 2019 or 2020.
“What is the one unequivocable fact that you can count on relative to the preparation of this draft and on draft day is that I’m planning on Romo being the quarterback for the next four or five years,” Jones told ESPN. “That’s a fact. You won’t see a decision on draft day that will fly in the face of not believing, from our standpoint, that he’ll be our quarterback for four or five years.”
That sure sounds like Jones is saying the Cowboys won’t use the fourth overall pick on a quarterback, as some expect them to do. At the same time, Jones acknowledged he might be tempted to take Cal quarterback Jared Goff or North Dakota State quarterback Carson Wentz.
“When you’ve got this high a pick and you have the circumstances we’re in right now with where we are as a team and with the quarterback, you’ve got to look at what’s available to us for sure and knowing that with these qualities of picks you can get some contributions, immediate contributions and should be significant with where that is,” Jones said. “I couldn’t tell you today at all how we might make the decision. This is one of those that might not be made until we’re down to the last 10 seconds on the clock.”
So Romo is the Cowboys’ quarterback for the foreseeable future. But a 2016 first-round draft pick might be Romo’s backup.