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FRISCO -- Jerry Jones has had better days than Friday.
Lordy, he's had better days.
First, the Hall of Fame owner of the Cowboys was greeted with news in the morning that his Pro Bowl tight end Jason Witten was considering retirement -- that a lucrative offer from ESPN was going to pull him off the field and into the Monday Night Football television booth. That led to a meeting with Witten at The Star over lunch hour. But Jones knew his words amounted to a Hail Mary.
Then Jones entered the draft room in the early evening for rounds 2 and 3 with hopes the Cowboys could address their sudden void of weapons on offense. For this offense to be Dak-friendly, the Cowboys needed to find him some weapons. Fast. The departure of Dez Bryant and imminent departure of Witten would strip Prescott of his two top receivers.
The Cowboys had the 50th pick of the draft -- the 18th pick of Round 2 -- and figured to fill one of the voids there. Dallas had some favorable options. Topping the wish list were SMU's Courtland Sutton at wide receiver and South Dakota State's Dallas Goedert at tight end.
But the Denver Broncos like SMU wide receivers. They already have Emmanuel Sanders on their flank and added another when they drafted Sutton with the eighth pick of the second round. The Philadelphia Eagles just like to torment the Cowboys period and did it again, trading up right in front of the Cowboys at 17 of the second round to claim Goedert.
So much for any Dallas desire to draft for need. But instead of panicking -- or bailing out of the round by trading back as too often had been their history -- the Cowboys trusted their draft board and took the values staring them in the face.
"I thought we were very disciplined," executive vice president Stephen Jones said. "We were letting the draft come to us."
Connor Williams was a sliding talent. A consensus All-America tackle at Texas in 2016, he missed eight games in 2017 with a knee injury. Still, he carried late first-round grades into the 2018 draft. But a mini-run on interior blockers and running backs in the second pushed the Coppell product down into the middle of the round, where the Cowboys claimed him.
But the Cowboys identified Williams as a guard in making their selection, which addressed a need on the offensive line. That would fill a hole to the left of Pro Bowl center Travis Frederick on the blocking front. Jonathan Cooper, the incumbent left guard, bolted the Cowboys for the Raiders in free agency.
When the Cowboys went back on the clock at 81 in the third round, despite eight wide receivers already having cleared the board, the Cowboys found one of the most productive receivers in college football. Michael Gallup caught a Colorado State-record 100 passes for 1,413 yards and seven touchdowns last season and was one of three Biletnikoff Award finalists as the top wide receiver in college football.
Gallup is not a burner, not with 4.51 speed. He beats defenders with his route-running and feel for the passing game. Prescott's strength is the underneath passing game, which is why Witten would be such a loss. The all-time leading receiver in Cowboys' history and fourth all-time receiver in NFL history was a security blanket for Prescott, just as he had been for Tony Romo. When in doubt, throw it to 82. Gallup would be able to provide dependable hands in the short-to-intermediate range to pick up some of that slack.
So in the first two days of the draft, the Cowboys found two players who pencil in as walk-in starters, first-round middle linebacker Leighton Vander Esch and Williams.
There are four more rounds left in the draft Saturday and the Cowboys still have plenty of needs, primarily tight end, the interior defensive line and safety. Dallas has seven pick and there are players to be found. Like they did in rounds two and three, the Cowboys need to continue finding them.
"This is going to be a huge day for us," Stephen Jones said. "Maybe the most important day of our draft."
