BACKUP PLAN
Dallas Cowboys signing Andy Dalton may represent a shift in concept for Jerry Jones on backup QBs
Jerry Jones' batting average on quarterbacks isn't anything that would have made Ted Williams proud. The decay of the original Cowboys enabled him to take Troy Aikman No. 1, then he found Tony Romo and Dak Prescott while fooling around the discount aisle. Pretty much covers it. If he'd hit as many dry holes as a wildcatter, he'd still be the scourge of North Little Rock.
Given the history, it might not seem promising that Andy Dalton is returning to Texas to play Dak's understudy. Trust me, the only bad news is Tim Cowlishaw gets to say he told us so.
Only days before the Cowboys made it official, Tim led the charge for Jerry to sign Dalton or Cam Newton or Joe Flacco as Dak's backup. Tim's argument was perfectly logical, as usual. If he'd asked me first, I'd have told him logic is no starting place with the Cowboys owner.
Look at this backup quarterback proposition from Jerry's point of view: Over his 31 years in charge, he's seen 24 backups start at least one game. Depending on how you want to count a couple of them, they're 37-58, a record that can be interpreted a number of ways:
A) As emergency replacements, they were thrown into untenable situations.
B) They followed the general NFL pattern.
C) Jerry did a crummy job of finding quality backups.
If you said C, — and I could hear some of you all the way over here — then you're not thinking like Jerry.
The best organizations draft quarterbacks and develop them even if they have a good quarterback already in place. Not so much with Jerry. Do you know how many quarterbacks he drafted in the `90s? Only Bill Musgrave, a fourthrounder out of Oregon in 1991. For a little perspective, Gil Brandt used to draft a quarterback every other year. Sometimes he'd go nuts. In `64, he drafted Roger Staubach and Jerry Rhome. And Don Meredith was only 25 at the time.
Good organizations view backup quarterbacks as commodities. Green Bay's Ron Wolf, the Hall of Fame general manager, famously drafted Aaron Rodgers when he still had Brett Favre. Wolf wasn't always thinking about replacing the guy in hand. Most times he'd trade his backup for a better pick than he invested.
On the whole, Jerry has looked at backup quarterbacks less as commodities than as insurance. And who wants to pay for that? It's not hard to understand what Jerry was thinking in the `90s. He didn't invest in quarterbacks because he had Troy Aikman. Same reason he didn't draft running backs. He had Emmitt Smith. He didn't see the point in drafting — and thus, paying — players who didn't have much chance of earning their keep.
The irony is, because Jerry didn't draft and develop quarterbacks, he had to sign veteran backups, and they're not cheap. Believe me, if there's anything that chaps Jerry, it's paying somebody a lot of money to stand around.
Consider the case Jerry could make about Kyle Orton. In two years as a backup, he started one game and lost it. He then threatened to retire rather than come back and stand around some more. Only he'd have to return $3.4 million in signing bonuses if he quit. Not a dumb guy, Orton made enough stink that the Cowboys released him rather than put up with all the noise. As a result, Orton kept his $3.4 million, then signed with the Bills. Went 7-5 for Buffalo in `14, too.
You could see how this sort of thing might sour Jerry on backup quarterbacks in general. It's not like they win, right? Of those who have started more than one game for him, only three have winning records: Steve Beuerlein (4-0), Jason Garrett (6-3) and Romo, who went 6-4 after replacing Drew Bledsoe in 2006.
As if the results above weren't bad enough, there was 2015, when Matt Cassel (1-6), Brandon Weeden (0-3) and Kellen Moore (0-2) didn't exactly ride to the rescue.
All things considered, it's no wonder that not only has Dak started every game since he came into the league in 2016, no other quarterback has so much as thrown a pass the last two years.
Of course, Dak's durability has lulled Jerry into a false sense of security. Cooper Rush should have seen some game time if for no other reason than to prepare him for emergencies that crop up at the most inconvenient times.
Mike McCarthy, who just came from an organization good with quarterbacks, has preached the importance of depth at the position. He apparently convinced Jerry they didn't carry enough insurance. Andy isn't Dak's heir. But if pressed into emergency service, he's demonstrated that, surrounded by sufficient talent, he can win. Pretty radical concept for backups around here. The history might explain why Jerry was so attached to Jason.