IRVING, Texas -- Johnny Manziel was the highest-rated player on the team's draft board when the Dallas Cowboys went on the clock with the 16th overall pick, team owner/general manager Jerry Jones said Friday.

But there's only room at Valley Ranch for one celebrity quarterback.

"It was too significant for him to be an insurance policy," Jerry Jones said Friday of Johnny Manziel. "There's just too much dynamic here for him, for the franchise, for everybody." Max Faulkner/Fort Worth Star-Telegram/Getty Images

Tony Romo is entrenched as the Cowboys' starting quarterback for the foreseeable future, as long as his body cooperates.

As highly as some in the Cowboys' front office think of Manziel, Jones said the 2012 Heisman Trophy winner would have been stuck as a backup if Dallas drafted him.

But Romo-Manziel would have been perhaps the most high-profile, polarizing quarterback controversy in NFL history. That media circus may have been too much even for Jones, a marketing genius.

"It was too significant for him to be an insurance policy," Jones said Friday night, a day after the Cleveland Browns selected Manziel with the 22nd pick after the Cowboys passed on him. "There's just too much dynamic here for him, for the franchise, for everybody. That's just too much for insurance, and it's not the usual development guy behind an accomplished quarterback. He's a celebrity. He's Elvis Presley."

As Manziel said himself, speculating on the scene if the Cowboys would have drafted him, "I don't know if the world could have handled that, honestly."

Jones said he firmly believes Manziel will have a successful NFL career and didn't hesitate to predict he will be outstanding for the Browns.

"He's got a chance to knock it out of the park, and we all know that," Jones said.