Jalen Ramsey recounts 2016 NFL Draft, says Dallas Cowboys told him they’d take him at number 4 overall

It was a big decision for the Cowboys franchise and many have wondered if they got it wrong.

There are certain draft years that feel more vivid than others in retrospect and 2016 is certainly among them. Amazingly it has been six years since Dallas Cowboys fans debated over the merits of Jared Goff or Carson Wentz being the team’s pick at number four overall. With the Cowboys coming off of a season where Tony Romo missed 12 games, there were many people wanting to ensure that the future of the most-important position in the game was taken care of, and by an incredible stroke of luck the team did manage to address it with the selection of Dak Prescott in the fourth round.

Once we got past the quarterbacks during that class the conversation shifted towards debating between Florida State cornerback Jalen Ramsey and Ohio State running back Ezekiel Elliott. We now know that the Cowboys took Elliott and that the Cowboys gave him a second contract, but oftentimes people have wondered what life would have been like with Jalen Ramsey patrolling the Dallas secondary.

Jalen Ramsey says that the Dallas Cowboys told him during his visit that they were going to take him at number 4 overall

The selection of Jalen Ramsey would have dramatically improved their defense as a whole. Ramsey went to the Jacksonville Jaguars just one pick after the Cowboys took Elliott, and he was ultimately traded to the Los Angeles Rams where he was a part of the team that just won the Super Bowl. The NFL Draft is a major ‘what if’ business and Ramsey has sparked the latest episode with a recent appearance on The Pivot.

It makes sense that the Cowboys would have told Ramsey that he was going to be their pick, after all the draft is a time of year where minds change almost on a daily basis. It is very possible that if and when they told him this that the Cowboys believed it.

Of course fate did not go that way and the Cowboys instead have Elliott. You can definitely make the case that Dallas would have been better off taking Ramsey in the first round and turning around in the second round to select Alabama running back Derrick Henry, but Dallas added Notre Dame’s Jaylon Smith to the Ezekiel Elliott selection instead.