FRISCO, Texas -- Jerry Jones must be thrilled with Tony Romo's decision to leave football for a television job with CBS.

The veteran quarterback’s decision means there’s zero chance Romo can lead another team to the Super Bowl, which must make Jones giddy.

Some folks in the Dallas-Fort Worth area remain upset because Jones let former coach Jimmy Johnson leave the Dallas Cowboys after consecutive Super Bowl wins more than 20 years ago in a clash of egos.

Can you imagine the vitriol directed toward Jones if the Cowboys released Romo and he took his new team to the Super Bowl?

Especially if that new team were the Houston Texans, the team four hours south down Interstate 45 that Romo indicated he would’ve chosen had he decided to keep playing professional football.

Jones would never, ever live that down.

Of course, that’s no longer a worry. Nor will Jones have to listen or read the weekly comparisons regarding Romo and Dak Prescott, the man who took the veteran's job.

This is the best-case scenario for Romo and Jones, but it’s not one either man could’ve predicted a month or two ago.

When the season ended, Romo had every intention of playing football and Jones had every intention of trading him, probably to Denver or Houston.

But NFL teams have never been fond of spending assets, players, or draft picks on players they could acquire for free with some patience.

So, they waited rather than give Jones anything for a 36-year-old quarterback with more than 34,000 yards passing and 248 touchdown passes in his career.

Jones didn’t mind waiting because he was determined not to make the same mistake with Romo that he did three years ago with DeMarcus Ware.

Ware wasn’t interested in the pay cut the Cowboys suggested based on his age, injury history and production, so they released him at the start of free agency, when teams were flush with cash.

Ware quickly signed a three-year, $30 million deal with the Broncos and helped lead them to a Super Bowl win two seasons ago.

Jones, determined not to make the same mistake, wanted to give the Cowboys every opportunity to get something for Romo. In the process, the quarterback had a moment of clarity and CBS offered a rare opportunity to team with Jim Nantz and have a role on the network’s No. 1 football announcing team.

To outsiders, it looked as though Jones was preventing Romo from continuing to chase his football dream. They lambasted the owner in social media and sports talk radio shows for allegedly violating the “do-right” agreement he had entered with Romo, especially when the Cowboys didn’t release Romo at the start of free agency last month as he indicated he would. The reality is the time created an opportunity for Romo to determine the best path for the rest of his life.

“Jerry was amazing during this. I know sometimes it didn't look like it from the outside,” Romo said during a teleconference Tuesday afternoon. “There were some times when things got, maybe, a day or two different than what we thought, but he really was in my corner.

“The stuff he said publicly about doing me right? He really did. He'll always be in my life, and I'll always be in his.”

After Troy Aikman retired following the 2000 season, Quincy Carter, Anthony Wright, Ryan Leaf, Clint Stoerner, Chad Hutchinson, Vinny Testaverde, Drew Henson and Drew Bledsoe started games at quarterback for the Cowboys.

Romo took over for Bledsoe in the third quarter of a Week 6 game against the New York Giants in 2006 and kept the job for a decade. This time, there's a clear plan of succession.

Last season, Romo suffered a compression back fracture in the third preseason game, creating an opportunity for Prescott, a fourth-round pick, to play.

Prescott went 13-3 as a starter, leading the Cowboys to the NFC East title and the best record in the conference.

With the Cowboys' quarterback of the future on the roster, it became easier for Jones to bid Romo adieu.

"Tony has been a wonderful representative of the Cowboys organization for 14 years, and he left everything he had on the field," Jones said in a statement. "He will leave us with many great memories and a legacy of being, truly, one of the greatest players in Cowboys history.

“We are thrilled for him and his family that he will be able to continue working as a professional in the game he so dearly loves. He is a young man who is just getting started on a long journey in life. All the best, my friend."

Now, Jones can root for Romo every week without worrying about how it reflects on him.