It’s good to be Jerry Jones right now.
The Cowboys owner is raving about his team’s prospects ever since Tony Romo did all of Dallas a favor by retiring to the CBS booth instead of joining an NFL competitor. It turns out holding the veteran quarterback in Cowboys purgatory since the end of the season — auctioning him off without physically releasing him from the roster to sign with another team — worked in Jones’ favor.
He won’t have to bear the sight of seeing the Cowboys lifer in another uniform.
“Yes, because I think that if he were, they would be real competition for us this year,” Jones said at a news conference Monday ahead of Thursday’s NFL Draft, according to Dallas Morning News.
“I never one time anticipated any angst,” he added. “Worked out about as well as I think we could draw it up.”
It’s easy for Jones to reflect positively on the Romo charade, while Romo himself sat around without a team to call home after bidding the Cowboys fan base a heartfelt farewell.
Jones has reason to celebrate. If Romo had found success in nearby Houston, while Dak Prescott somehow scuffled in Year 2 with Dallas it would have been a debacle from a football and public relations standpoint — two things near and dear to Jones’ heart.
Romo requested the Cowboys release him on April 4 and accepted the CBS job the same day. The 37-year-old, in an ambitious shakeup for a TV rookie, is taking Phil Simm’s place as the lead NFL broadcast analyst this season.
It’s a role reversal for Romo, who lost his job to Prescott last season as he battled back from injuries. Prescott thrived in his place, leading the Cowboys to first place in the NFC East and a divisional round playoff game, which they lost to the Packers in thrilling fashion.
All the success has Jones chomping at the bit for next season.
“It just really shows me that positive things are more likely to happen to you than because of you,” he said. “We’ve had some really good things happen to our team. And I candidly would have to say that’s been a story in my life and career. But certainly to be sitting here right now with the future as we have it, I could’ve never dreamed this hand would’ve been dealt this way. But certainly we have every reason to, frankly, be more positive today than we were a year ago.”
With Romo out of the picture, the Cowboys already appear ready to lock up his replacement to back up Prescott.
“We’d love to pick up at some point — through the draft or college free agency — another player to start the process with,” Cowboys executive vice president Stephen Jones said Monday.