The Cowboys lack in this area made 2015 a waste

The Dallas Cowboys having a lack of young, quality depth in this area caused 2015 to be nothing more than a waste.

For the Dallas Cowboys, 2015 has become a wasted season. When starting quarterback Tony Romo’s suffered his second clavicle break this season, any tangible progress the team could have made towards winning a title was nullified.

But had the Cowboys, and specifically general manager and owner Jerry Jones done what wise personnel executives do and drafted a young quarterback, at least the remainder of 2015 could have been spent figuring out if that quarterback had a future with the Cowboys.

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Instead, the final five games of the season will be quarterbacked by journeyman backup Matt Cassel, who at age 33 is not part of the Cowboys’ long-term future.

The problem is that Jones has simply ignored the quarterback position since the emergence of Romo in 2006. In the nine drafts that have followed Romo’s ascension to starter, he’s has only once drafted a quarterback.

In 2009, the Cowboys spent a 4^th round pick on Texas A&M quarterback Stephen McGee. The weak-armed and inaccurate McGee was released from the Cowboys in September of 2012 after showing no semblance of being an NFL caliber player.

One of Jones’ problems is that he has made so many bad draft choices that he’s had to spend high draft picks trying to fill holes at other positions. Think about all of the 1^st and 2^nd round picks Dallas has spent on tight ends and cornerbacks while drafting no one at the game’s most important position earlier than the 4^th round.

Rick Gosselin of The Dallas Morning News explains why picking quarterbacks early in the draft is important.

"He writes, “There have been 57 different quarterbacks who have taken teams to Super Bowls. Fifty-five of them arrived in the NFL as draft picks, including 28 first-rounders, six seconds and seven thirds. Those are the premium rounds.” Link"

Furthermore, Gosselin points out that in the past decade the New England Patriots and the Green Bay Packers, teams with the two best quarterbacks in the NFL, have drafted a combined five quarterbacks in the past decade.

But in pursuit of another Super Bowl title, Jones has let his optimism cloud his judgment. He has decided to sign aging veterans like Jon Kitna, Brandon Weeden and Cassel to be the team’s emergency plan should Romo be injured.

None of these players have been capable of leading a team to sustained success meaning that as Romo has grown older, Dallas has been playing a dangerous game of Russian Roulette with its future.

Compare the Cowboys situation to that of the Denver Broncos, which drafted quarterback Brock Osweiler in the same year that they signed future Hall of Fame quarterback Peyton Manning. Now that Manning is injured, Denver is not only finding out if Osweiler is capable of being the team’s starter post-Manning, Denver is winning with the young talented backup quarterback it drafted and developed.

The available quarterbacks in next year’s NFL Draft may be the most underwhelming collection in recent memory. There appears to be no certain franchise quarterback like Andrew Luck of the Indianapolis Colts or the Carolina Panthers’ Cam Newton.

But this does not mean that Dallas should ignore the quarterback position once again. Nor should the franchise not give the position the attention it deserves by not spending a quality draft pick on filling this need.

I am not calling for Romo to be replaced; he is still the team’s best option to win a title in the next few years. Plus, the 2016 draft may not be the best time for Dallas to spend what is likely to be a top 5 pick on a quarterback unless the front office is certain that it is drafting the franchise’s future.

But Jones needs to find a quarterback that can be a serviceable NFL player so that when Dallas has to rely on someone other than Romo, the team will not have to settle for washed up veterans with rubber arms and nervous ticks developed from years of being battered behind the inept offensive lines of awful teams.

Next: Which Cowboys positional group is the most disappointing?

It is going to be difficult for even the most passionate of Cowboys fans to find reasons to watch the remainder of this season’s games.

But if Dallas had a talented young quarterback receiving an opportunity to develop his skills in regular season action while possibly providing a glimpse of the future, the disaster that has been the 2015 season would not have been a complete waste.

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