When the Cowboys’ football staff is gathered together in one draft room, owner and General Manager Jerry Jones has final say — but sometimes Jones would get talked out of making a splashy move, most famously when his son Stephen Jones convinced him to draft guard Zack Martin instead of quarterback Johnny Manziel.
This year, Jones will make the Cowboys’ pick from his home, with no one else around. Which means no one will be there to physically restrain him, if it comes to that. And Jones joked that in the past, it would come to that.
“One of the things I’m not going to miss is when I came out of those draft rooms over the weekend, my old shins used to have big old bruises on them,” Jones said. “That was from Stephen kicking me under the table for three straight days relative to some of our decision-making. I know that we have a serious conference here, but I think I’m going to kind of miss that physical punching that goes on. I told him one time, I asked him where he got his strength when he was 16 years old, he had his uncle down, about to kill him, choked him. He was a big boy, that uncle. And I said, ‘I don’t feel that when I’m rasslin with you.’ He said, ‘Well, you don’t squeeze your daddy as hard as you can.’ The point is, I’m going to miss a little of that punching around at the table as we’re conducting this draft.”
Jones says he doesn’t expect any technical difficulties when communicating with the league office or with other teams on trades.
“I’m very comfortable that the technical capability is very much here,” Jones said.
When it’s time for the Cowboys to make the call, it will be Jerry and Jerry alone making it.