Cowboys Trade for Jeanty Dream Just Made Perfectly Clear

FRISCO- The Dallas Cowboys' connections to Boise State running back Ashton Jeanty and the idea of trying to get him with the 12th overall pick in April's NFL Draft?

There are a lot of them.

Besides that Boise State pipeline - from Orlando Scandrick to Kellen Moore to DeMarcus Lawrence to Leighton Vander Esch, the Cowboys have long had an affinity for Boise players, and now comes new offensive coordinator Klayton Adams, who just so happened to be the Broncos' starting center for two seasons - there is the Frisco connection.

He's from here. He wants to be drafted here.

Even he sees a connection.

"People say I'm a more explosive Emmitt Smith," he said at the Super Bowl LIX in New Orleans, "so I'm going to go with that."

The Cowboys scouting department won't argue too hard against the notion, and that's saying something.

Emmitt won three Super Bowl rings and set the NFL's all-time rushing record on his way to the Cowboys' Ring of Honor and the Pro Football Hall of Fame.

But there is a problem, as just revealed by Cowboys COO Stephen Jones in a radio appearance on 105.3 The Fan. Jones says Dallas is far more likely to trade down (because there is a volume of talent from about the No. 10 spot to maybe the No. 40 spot) than it is to trade up.

And the way these teams' boards are being built?

To get Jeanty, the only way might be to trade up.

Interestingly, it so happens that Emmitt himself is against this idea altogether.

Seriously, Emmitt doesn't want the Cowboys to draft Jeanty.

And why not?

“If he comes to the Cowboys right now ... he’s going to get beat up," Smith said recently. "I don’t think we’re ready. We don’t have the right mindset. We don’t have the right commitments.”

No disrespect to Emmitt, but that's nonsense. Dallas needs great players, just as was the case when Emmitt was drafted here in 1990 to a team that had just finished 1-15.

He helped the Cowboys get great.

Jeanty could do the same.

But not without a Dallas trade-up ... a dreamy idea that just got killed.