Commentary

Time for Cowboys to draft QB

The shopping list is obvious for the Dallas Cowboys. When you finish 4-12, you have plenty of needs.

A pass rusher would be near the top of the list. So would a cornerback with ball skills. There also could be a running back and a linebacker sitting there who would look mighty attractive to Coach Jason Garrett when the Cowboys go on the clock in the first round.

But with the fourth overall pick of the 2016 NFL draft, the Cowboys must zero in on a quarterback. That's where you find greatness at the position. You can get lucky and pluck a Joe Montana in the third round or a Tom Brady in the sixth. But historically, the top five is where you find the difference makers.

The winning quarterbacks in 27 of the first 49 Super Bowls were first-round draft picks. Quarterbacks selected in the top five combined to win 19 of those Super Bowls: Len Dawson, Joe Namath, Bob Griese, Terry Bradshaw, Jim Plunkett, Jim McMahon, John Elway, Troy Aikman and both Peyton and Eli Manning.

The Cowboys can draft a pass rusher or a running back in the first round this April and instantly become a better team. That might bump the win count to eight, nine or even 10 in 2016. Jones does not want to draft in the top five again. So this may be the one chance -- the best chance, the last chance -- the Cowboys have of finding a worthy successor to Tony Romo at quarterback.

Drafting a quarterback in the top five isn't the scatter shot that it is drafting a Jake Locker with the eighth overall pick, a Kyle Boller with the 19th pick, Brandon Weeden with the 22nd pick or a Tim Tebow with the 25th pick. The top five has proved to be gold.

There are two quarterbacks who pencil in at the top of this draft board, Jared Goff of California and Paxton Lynch of Memphis. Neither is John Elway. Neither is Andrew Luck. If you want a comparison, go to the 2004 draft. Goff is Eli Manning and Lynch is Ben Roethlisberger.

Like Manning, the 6-4, 215-pound Goff is the more polished product from a power conference (Pac-12). So the NFL is a shorter step for him from college. Like Roethlisberger, Lynch is the bigger (6-7), more physical (245-pound) specimen from the smaller school and smaller conference (ACC). Consequently, it may take him a bit longer to hit an NFL field than Goff.

But both Manning, the first overall pick of the 2004 draft, and Roethlisberger, the 11th overall choice, were worth the wait. Each has won two Super Bowls. Most top-five picks at the quarterback position are worth the wait.

There have been 19 quarterbacks selected in the top five of drafts since 2000. Twelve have taken their teams to the playoffs, nine have won division titles and seven have played in conference championship games. Eleven of the 19 have been voted to the Pro Bowl and five were named NFL Offensive Rookie of the Year.

The jury is still out on three of the 19 -- but the jury is looking very favorable on all three at this point. Blake Bortles, Jameis Winston and Marcus Mariota were all drafted in the last two years by atrocious NFL teams. Question marks hovered over all three on draft day. There wasn't an Elway in the bunch.

But Bortles passed for 4,428 yards and 35 touchdowns in his second season as a starter for the Jacksonville Jaguars. Winston passed for 4,042 yards and 22 touchdowns as a rookie with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers this season. And Mariota passed for 2,818 yards and 19 touchdowns despite missing four games because of injuries in this his rookie year with the Tennessee Titans.

The only three quarterbacks of the other 16 who failed to garner any attention -- no playoffs, no Pro Bowls, no Rookie of the Year acclaim -- were JaMarcus Russell, David Carr and Joey Harrington. But Harrington still spent six years as an NFL starter, Carr five and Russell two.

So if you've drafted a quarterback in the top five in the last 15 years, you've hit on that pick 84.2 percent of the time. Cam Newton and Carson Palmer were top-five picks during that stretch. They are quarterbacking the NFC's two top seeds in the 2015 playoffs. Alex Smith is another top-five pick in these playoffs, having steered the Kansas City Chiefs to 10 consecutive victories to close the season for a wild-card spot.

It's easy to talk yourself out of a quarterback. You can convince yourself there's a good one to be found in the second round. But only three quarterbacks selected in the second round have ever won Super Bowls. You can persuade yourself to wait until the third round -- that there are other holes to fill before quarterback needs to be addressed. But only two quarterbacks selected in the third round have ever won Super Bowls. Only one fourth-rounder has won a Super Bowl, and no fifth-rounder has.

No, if you want a Super Bowl quarterback, your best chance of finding him is in the top five of a draft.

That's where the Cowboys sit this April. They earned this pick. They need to maximize it. They need to draft a quarterback.

Sports on 01/08/2016

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