Could Cowboys Get on Wildcat Train, Draft Pat White?

Pat White could be useful to NFL teams in a couple of different ways

Cowboys owner Jerry Jones is dropping some hints that his team may want to inject a little wildcat into its offense in the upcoming season. From Todd Archer of the Dallas Morning News:

"We may want to do some things in our offense this year with a third quarterback," Jones said. "That's something other than be there as a backup to the second quarterback and be there in case you lose all the quarterbacks. ... We could hopefully find a quarterback with a set of skills that we could put some packages in for."

The name that pops to mind, at a time when everybody's mind is on the draft, is that of West Virginia quarterback Pat White, who is being projected as a receiver most places but has four years' worth of high-level college quarterback experience, making him look (at least on paper) like a perfect wildcat candidate.

The question for the Cowboys, if White is the guy they like, is when to take him. They could wait until the fourth round, when they have a pile of picks to spend, but there's a chance White might not still be around by then.

The knock on White is that he's not tall enough to play quarterback full-time in the NFL, and that's probably true. But White has been smartly combating his perceived negatives all winter with the way he's carried himself. He worked out only as a quarterback at the scouting combine, where he impressed doubtful onlookers with his skills and toughness. But he's also made it known to teams in private conversations and workouts that he's not against the idea of playing receiver.

Perhaps most importantly, in these days where public perception means so much, White has never come out and complained about the fact that teams look at him as a receiver. He'd obviously much rather be thought of as a quarterback, but he's smart in making sure he doesn't say anything to make potential employers think of him as a malcontent with a sense of entitlement. In these final weeks before the draft, that kind of thing would be a real turn-off.

So if the Cowboys want Pat White for their new wildcat schemes, they might want to think about taking him sooner than the fourth round. A guy who's spent the past couple of months giving teams nothing but reasons to like him could come off the board sooner than his physical tools might otherwise indicate he should.