That's because Peterson will likely be taken in the top seven picks of Thursday night's NFL Draft, and Cowboys owner/general manager Jerry Jones said yesterday he doesn't envision a scenario where his team will -- or can -- trade up.
"It's well known that I like to take risk, and you usually look real bad or you can look real good taking risk," Jones said during a Tuesday press conference at Cowboys Stadium. "I don't know if that is appropriate at the top of the first round as it is when you get into the latter part of the first round or other rounds."
The Cowboys have received calls from two teams kicking the tires about acquiring their No. 9 pick, and a trade down is much more likely than an expensive upgrade. Moving up to Peterson would likely cost Dallas a second-round pick.
This is the sixth time that Jones has possessed a Top 10 pick. Those drafts resulted in ...
1989 -- Troy Aikman (1st)
1991 -- Russell Maryland (1st)
1998 -- Greg Ellis (8th)
2002 -- Roy Williams (8th)
2003 -- Terence Newman (5th)
Said Jones of staying put at No. 9:
You'd like to think there's going to be a Newman there. You'd like to think there's going to be a Greg Ellis there. You'd like to think there's going to be some of the players that we've used that pick on in the past...Roy Williams. And I know that you might have issue with me saying those picks were safe picks, but if you really look at them we thought they were pretty safe picks when we made them. I know Newman was on 21 draft boards as the No. 1 pick of the draft. We picked him in the [five] spot. When we've been there, which is not very often, we've been pretty sound, I think, on the downside of the player, in thinking what the downside is.
At No. 9 the smart money is on the Cowboys selecting USC offensive lineman Tyron Smith.
Let's just hope Dallas' 2011 draft is closer to the coup of 2010 (when Jones jumped up to snag Dez Bryant) than the disaster of 2009 (where he traded down, down, down for quantity over quality and wound up with essentially nothing).
