Jerry Jones: I would trade up in this draft

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This year’s NFL draft is just over two weeks away, which means it’s officially smokescreen and misdirection season.

That might be what Jerry Jones was up to with some of his comments on Wednesday.

The Cowboys owner told reporters that his team would be interested in getting to a higher selection in the early rounds.

“I would trade up this draft — and just going in as much as you can say about it, until you see what’s there and who’s on the other end of the line,” Jones said, via Jon Machota of TheAthletic.com. “But I would trade up, since we’re down as low as we are in the first two or three rounds if we had a chance to and somebody that we had really coveted was sitting at the bottom … and we were able to trade up and get him.”

Dallas currently has the 24th overall pick of this year’s draft after winning the NFC East and falling to San Francisco in the opening round of the playoffs.

But the Cowboys haven’t traded up in the first round for years. The last time they did it was 2012, when the club swapped places with the then-St. Louis Rams to select cornerback Morris Claiborne at No. 6 overall.

Given the state of this year’s draft and the Cowboys projected needs, it’s more likely that the team might want to trade back and gain more assets instead of trade up.