Cowboys' Jerry Jones Hints at Offense-First Draft Plan

FRISCO - At Tuesday's pre-draft press conference inside The Star, Dallas Cowboys owner and general manager Jerry Jones spoke quite a bit about his team's offensive line.

While topics ranged all over the place throughout the hour-ish-long presser, Jones continued to emphasize the struggles last season's offensive line faced, pointing out that much of the run-game issues were a result of the O-line issues first.

In scoping this 2025 offseason, Jones sang his praises to newly-hired head coach Brian Schottenheimer for "Schotty's" attention given to the unit.

"Boy ,are we in great shape," Jones began. "One thing Schotty did: he did it right. I said boy we want some attention to that offensive line and he gets his coordinator that's one heck of an expert there. Then he gets one of the best offensive guys. I can't tell you how much I appreciate that."

Jones refers to Schottenheimer's coaching hires, Klayton Adams as offensive coordinator and Conor Riley as offensive line coach - both highly respected at those positions across the NFL.

The Cowboys have also went out and gotten depth pieces to develop a relatively young unit after the retirement of Zack Martin. However, those players won't be immediate starters the front office can rely on.

Holding the No. 12 pick in the first round of the NFL Draft, those free agency moves do not deter Dallas from finding a formidable blocker with that pick to sure up the "team within the team", as Jerry puts it.

Jones starts by reminding us that the franchise has seem "some of the best offensive lines known to man" to protect quarterback Dak Prescott and pave the way for multiple star running backs.

How did they do that? Through the NFL Draft. That formula could be in play again.

"One of the things we've started the meetings off with is ... can you put that kind of resources into your offensive line and can we get up there playing around the rim so that we can get one of these things with that offensive line."

"Playing around the rim" is one of Jerry's silly catch-phrases that basically means getting the Cowboys into strong contention to "get one of these things" - AKA a Super Bowl.

He believes a major step in that goal is putting emphasis on the trenches ... even with this first-round pick in this weekend's Draft.

"Generally when you step back and look at it, we've had some pretty good teams ... drafted offensive line with a lot of 1's," Jones said about recent first-round picks.

"Obviously when those guys get ready to come up if they're that kind of player, then you're going to have a lot of resources invested into that offensive line.

"We won't necessarily eliminate because we've got the resources we have on the offensive line this weekend. We won't eliminate that because of that experience. We've had some success with loading it up with top picks on the offensive line."

In a first-round that saw many predictions for a wide receiver and running back, bookmark OL as a new potential favorite for the Cowboys' first position taken.