ARLINGTON, TX – JANUARY 03: Tony Romo #9 of the Dallas Cowboys looks at the field after a 34-23 loss against the Washington Redskins at AT&T Stadium on January 3, 2016 in Arlington, Texas. (Photo by Ronald Martinez/Getty Images)

Tony Romo is the next Brett Favre.

That is according to Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones, and Jones is now officially on record stating he is looking for the guy to be his Aaron Rodgers “at some level” in the NFL Draft.

“You look at examples of Rodgers and you look at the example that he got to come in there and work behind Favre,” Jones told Todd Archer of ESPN.com. “Rodgers came from a different system in college. He saw the most freewheeling successful quarterback there’s ever been in this league. He saw that work. He added that to his game. It helped him become even more the type in that system than when he came in. Something like that could happen if we decided to go quarterback at some level. I emphasize that – at some level.”

The emphasis is because many in NFL circles are speculating that Dallas will use the fourth overall pick in the NFL Draft on a quarterback. There are a few potential franchise signal callers in this draft, and waiting for the later rounds may make the 2016 quarterback pickins rather slim.

Yes, the Cowboys were able to find Romo, their current franchise quarterback, as an undrafted free agent, but that rarely happens in the NFL and surely Dallas cannot expect to find lighting in a bottle again, even if that’s what Jones is hoping for.

Dallas hasn’t been to a Super Bowl—heck, they haven’t won two playoff games in the same year—since the 1995 season, back when No. 1 overall pick Troy Aikman was under center and Romo was just a 14-year-old kid playing catch in his yard.

Since that season, the starting quarterback in the Super Bowl has been a first-round pick 20 times (out of 40 starts), and a Super Bowl signal caller had been taken in the first three rounds 27 times, to just 13 appearances by those taken after the third round.

Th0se 20 starts in the Super Bowl by first-round quarterbacks came from 12 different players (and the 27 total by 17 players). Of the 13 Super Bowl appearances by quarterbacks taken after round three, nine of them were by Tom Brady or Kurt Warner.

The number of actual human quarterbacks drafted or signed after the third round to get to the Super Bowl since the last time Big D won the Big Game: Six. Brady, Warner, Brad Johnson, Rich Gannon, Jake Delhomme and Matt Hasselbeck make up that list, and only Brady was with the NFL team that originally signed him when he got there.

Will Carson Wentz or Jared Goff be on the board when Dallas drafts at No. 34? Probably not, no, not with teams like the 49ers, Eagles, Rams, Jets and Texans definitely in the market, and other teams like Detroit or Chicago or New Orleans also looking to set themselves up in the future if the right player drops to them.

NFL.com’s Daniel Jeremiah has Wentz and Goff both in his top 10 prospects, at No. 7 and N0. 8 respectively, with the next best quarterback not coming until No. 21 in Paxton Lynch of Memphis. After that, it’s Michigan State’s Connor Cook at No. 42, and those are the only four quarterbacks in his top 50 prospects.

CBS Sports’ big board has Goff at No. 5 and Wentz at No. 6 with Lynch the next best QB… at No. 49. Scouts Inc, at ESPN, has Wentz No. 9, Goff No. 10 and Lynch No. 27.

The point is, if Jones thinks Lynch—or Cook or Dak Prescott or Christian Hackenberg or Kevin Hogan or Jeff Driskel or Cardale Jones—can be his successor to Romo, there’s a solid chance most or all of them will be there in the second round and well beyond. But if Jones thinks he needs to go with Goff or Wentz, it’s not even a sure bet that Dallas would be able to move from the fourth pick to the fringes of the top 10 and still secure either quarterback.

Even if Jones believes what he says about Romo—that he will be the starter in Dallas for another “four or five” years—history suggests otherwise. Romo is 35 years old and is coming off multiple surgeries. He started just four games—and finished just two—in 2015. How many 39-year-old quarterbacks are still slinging it at a Super Bowl level? Two? One?

Before missing almost all of last season, Romo missed at least one game in the previous two, including a de facto playoff game in the final week of 2013, missing the final 10 games in 2010 as well. He isn’t injury-prone, per se, but he is often banged up. While it may be commendable for him to play with pain—Romo certainly is Favre-like with that—it’s short-sighted of Jones not to prepare for the future, given the way last season went for Dallas and the increased dependence on the quarterback position in today’s NFL.

Now, of course, Jones might just be blowing an everything-is-bigger-in-Texas-sized cloud of smoke right now in the hopes a team behind him in the draft doesn’t move up ahead of Dallas to take the quarterback he really wants. Unlike other NFL owners, Jones maintains control of the roster, so when he talks about a developing a guy with a transitional plan to go from Romo to this yet-to-be-named quarterback of the future over the next few years, it’s important to listen, even when everyone knows he’s either clearly lying or absolutely delusional.

Especially then.

“If a player came in here and played behind him three to four years, he would come out with a Harvard degree in how to play quarterback, in my mind,” Jones told Archer. “He would be that influential. And it would open up an area of how to play the game that we all would agree has a certain unique style to it, Romo. Just like, say, Favre did with Rodgers.”

Leave aside the fact that Favre and Rodgers reportedly didn’t get along when they both played for the Packers, thanks in part to Favre not doing much to help Rodgers develop while sitting behind the Hall of Famer. Sure, watching Favre play and practice had to have some residual benefit for Rodgers, but to credit his elusiveness and free-wheeling style on getting to play behind Favre seems to discount a lot of what had been previously reported about their relationship as teammates. And Rodgers’ own ability as a mobile quarterback.

Romo seems like a genuinely better guy than Favre, and is probably a better teammate to whoever his next backup may be, but planning on an existing quarterback taking a backup under his wings to teach him the nuances of the position in the NFL seems more like an exception, not a rule. How have Tom Brady’s backups done in the NFL? Has Brock Osweiler learned from Peyton Manning? Sure. Do any of us think that’s because of any mentoring on Manning’s part? Probably not.

Listen to Jones at the NFL Combine and you might come away thinking Dallas isn’t going to take a quarterback at the top of the draft. Listen to his most recent comments, he thinks Romo could be around longer than most rookie contracts even last, so taking a first-rounder now doesn’t make a lot of sense for Dallas. And still, history shows that if Dallas wants to get back to the Super Bowl, they might have to take a quarterback high in the draft at some point, even if he swears it won’t be this year.

This, of course, could all be nothing more than off-season gamesmanship on the part of Jones. Or he could really think that Romo is his Brett Favre, and whoever he brings in next could become his Aaron Rodgers. Only, Favre won a Super Bowl in Green Bay, and multiple MVP awards. Romo hasn’t won more than a division title. And even though he fell in the NFL Draft, Rodgers was still, yes, a first round pick.

About Dan Levy

Dan Levy has written a lot of words in a lot of places, most recently as the National Lead Writer for Bleacher Report. He was host of The Morning B/Reakaway on Sirius XM's Bleacher Report Radio for the past year, and previously worked at Sporting News and Rutgers University, with a concentration on sports, media and public relations.