IRVING, Texas – If you're thinking the Dallas Cowboys might draft a quarterback this year and are focusing on the guys you've heard of – Geno Smith and Matt Barkley -- you might be thinking too high.
How about the next level, with players like Ryan Nassib, E.J. Manuel, Tyler Wilson, Tyler Bray, Zac Dysert, Mike Glennon, Mike Scott and Landry Jones among the names?
I say there is evidence you're still too high.
Let the guessers consider those names while you know the facts: Finding a long-shot candidate to someday be the successor to Tony Romo is on Dallas' things-to-do list. But with just six picks in the upcoming NFL Draft, the Cowboys might not be able to afford to take a projected third-stringer (a QB who would sit behind Romo and Kyle Orton) high.
What they can do it take extensive looks at quarterbacks who are far less coveted.
Quarterbacks like Tanner Marsh of Arkansas Tech, Kyle Padron of Eastern Washington and Jake Mullin of McMurry University.
Who? Who? Who?
I can offer up those names because I'm told those three players, due to their regional connections, are expected to participate in Wednesday's "Dallas Day" at Cowboys Stadium. To my knowledge, none of the more heralded QBs mentioned above have engaged in visits with the Cowboys. That doesn't rule them out as draft prospects, of course.
But Marsh, Padron and Mullin – none of whom have the cache to rank on anybody's mock draft board – might be lucky to be seventh-round guys. Oh, and Dallas doesn't even have a seventh-rounder right now, so one of these fellas might land at Valley Ranch as an undrafted rookie free agent.
It's not as sexy or headline-grabbing as tossing the word "Cowboys" into a story that includes a mention of "Romo" and "Geno Smith" or whomever … but it's the truth regarding the real work being done, and the real names being explored, at Cowboys HQ.
