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Can Dallas Cowboys' Jerry Jones stay out of draft's first round?

Can owner and general manager Jerry Jones, the king of draft-day trades since he took over the team in 1989, really sit still that long and do – gulp – nothing?

"We're going to put him in a straitjacket," executive vice president Stephen Jones joked.

For a second, Jerry Jones thought about the potential boredom of sitting on his hands for more than six hours Saturday.

"You're right," he said. "Put me in a straitjacket."

The Cowboys have made 51 draft-weekend trades in Jones' first 20 drafts, including five in 2008.

Last year, they had real draft-day juice with two first-round picks. At No. 22, they took running back Felix Jones. They quickly moved from No. 28 to No. 25 by trading with Seattle to take cornerback Mike Jenkins because they did not believe he would fall much further.

If there was one thing that seemed certain at Thursday's news conference at the team's new stadium in Arlington, it was the Cowboys' preference to stay out of the first round.

Salary-cap restraints will make it difficult for teams to work out contracts for top picks because of the uncertainty surrounding the collective bargaining agreement. Jones said that was one of the reasons he made the deal with Detroit last season, when the Cowboys traded their first-, third- and sixth-round picks this year for wide receiver Roy Williams and a seventh-round pick in 2010.

Even without their top pick, the Cowboys have a chance to shake up the draft Sunday, with 10 picks in Rounds 3-7.

Two of the Cowboys' five second-day trades in 2008 gave them Cleveland's third-round pick (No. 69 overall) and Detroit's fourth-round pick (No. 101) in 2009. They have three picks in the fifth round (Nos. 156, 166, 172), two in the sixth (Nos. 197, 208) and two in the seventh (Nos. 210, 227).

Jerry Jones called the fourth-round selection "a war daddy," because it's the first pick of the round, and it's where teams find players who fall through the cracks.

"We think there's good currency there if that's what you choose to do," Stephen Jones said. "You can always trade for future picks. There's good value there if someone's dying for a player where you can upgrade yourself a round in the future."

Straitjacket or not, Jerry Jones said he believes Saturday will be a "slow day" but Sunday will be different.

"We will, in essence, with all the picks we have, really be in a controlling position if there is such a thing in the draft," Jones said.

"This is going to be a good year for our group to accept the challenge because we've got to have some football players out of this draft and we've got to get football players that contribute immediately."

LINK >> Can Dallas Cowboys' Jerry Jones stay out of draft's first round? | Dallas Cowboys News | Sports News | News for Dallas, Texas | Dallas Morning News

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