Aimee
It almost happened, everybody: the perfect marriage of unhinged player and untethered town, the match of talent and spotlight and hedonism that the NFL hasn’t seen since Joe Namath in the early ’70s. Johnny Manziel was almost a Cowboy.
You remember draft night from earlier this year, yes? Manziel’s fate was one of the draft’s biggest stories, and as he fell further down the draft board, the realization dawned: he might be available for Dallas! How amazing would that be?
On paper (or, you know, iPhone) it all seemed perfect: Texas kid joins the Texas royal family, learns the ropes from the aging gunslinger, takes over in 2018, stacks up trophies of both the Lombardi and wife varieties, becomes governor in 2045.
It wasn’t to be. With Manziel in the green room and the Cowboys on the clock,
“I want you to know that almost as I was handing in the card, it was that close to putting that Manziel card in. It was that close,” Jones told the NFL Network on Sunday. The Cowboys ended up going with Notre Dame guard Zack Martin.
