Cardale Jones to Bills: Twitter Reacts as QB Is Selected in 2016 NFL Draft

Cardale Jones rose from third on the depth chart to lead the Ohio State Buckeyes to a national championship for the 2014 season, but he failed to hold on to the starting quarterback job this past season, which complicated his 2016 NFL draft outlook.

The Buffalo Bills finally ended Jones' wait, selecting the former Buckeye in the fourth round with the 139th overall pick. 

Bleacher Report draft expert Matt Miller listed Jones as the eighth-rated QB in the 2016 draft class and the 136th player overall on his final big board. That ranking would land Jones somewhere in the compensatory area of the fourth round.  

But NFL Network's Daniel Jeremiah said in March (h/t NFL.com's Chase Goodbread) he thinks Jones could hear a team call his name as early as the second round.

"I'm going to put him in the second round," said Jeremiah. "[...] There's going to be a quarterback coach (or) an offensive coordinator who is going to go to the GM and say, 'This guy has such rare physical tools, give me some time to work with him, I will get it out of him.'"

That assessment hints precisely at the upside Jones presents. The 6'5", 253-pounder ran a 4.81-second 40-yard dash at February's NFL Scouting Combine in Indianapolis, but his lack of game reps in college—only 270 career pass attempts at Ohio State—is a fair point of criticism.

Pro Football Talk's Michael David Smith did point out that Jones' decision to return to Ohio State wound up being a bad thing for him:

Even though things may not have worked out perfectly for Jones, Fox Sports' Bruce Feldman likes what the Bills did with the selection:

ESPN's Adam Schefter speculated about a potentially unique use for Jones in Buffalo's offense with Tyrod Taylor still on the roster:

Here's the best of the rest reaction from social media about Buffalo's newest quarterback:

Jones didn't have the breakout year most predicted for him in 2015 coming off the national title run the previous year. He's still a young and developing quarterback who only threw 269 passes at Ohio State. 

The Bills have a stop-gap quarterback for next season with Taylor, but offensive coordinator Greg Roman has proven to be excellent at tailoring systems to fit players like Taylor, Alex Smith and Colin Kaepernick. 

It will likely take a year or two of development before Jones gets significant playing time, yet the talent made too much sense for the Bills to pass up at this point in the draft.