They've tried it and failed miserably before. If anyone should know that, it's the Cowboys.
They had no plan other than Aikman and when he suddenly retired, they were sunk. And we got the fondly remembered Campo years. 5-11, 5-11, 5-11.
If they want to go back to those days, just pass on the opportunity to get a quarterback.
In the first year after Aikman, it might have been a good thing that we didn't have a first-round pick because maybe we would have traded up for Michael Vick. Our best bet would have been trading up in front of San Diego at 32 for Drew Brees instead of taking Carter.
Getting Carter set our QB search back for years. Of course, that might have been a good thing the next year because we could have spent our first-rounder on the likes of David Carr or Joey Harrington or Patrick Ramsey. (We probably would have been better off selecting fourth-rounder David Garrard.)
In 2003, we could have gotten Carson Palmer with a slight trade-up from No. 5, or chosen Byron Leftwich or Kyle Boller in the first round, not exactly guys who set the world on fire.
Maybe some of those players' careers would have turned out differently in Dallas, but the years after we lost Aikman were bereft of quality QB talent other than Palmer. Of course, not drafting a quarterback that year worked out well for us ultimately because we picked up Romo as an undrafted free agent in 2003.
The next year, there was finally a worthy first-round QB class in Eli Manning, Phillip Rivers and Ben Roethlisberger.
This question is whether this class is like that one or more like the ones following Aikman where we might not have found a replacement even if we had taken a QB in the first round.
