Would Getting Rid of Romo Make the Dallas Cowboys Winners?

The answer to that question is: Highly unlikely. With Tony Romo gone, the Dallas Cowboys would be completely lost. We don’t have a young LSU grad named Matt Flynn as a back up either. We’ve got a Texas A&M graduate named Stephen McGee.

Is there anyone out there comfortable with McGee playing more than a pre-season game? If you answered ‘yes’ to this question then I urge you to reconsider. Honestly, I’d be more comfortable with Vinny Testaverde out there than Stephen McGee, but I’m not a coach and I think Vinny retired, who knows. The point is that maybe someday McGee will be ready for more than just a pre-season game, until that time its Romo 100%. Why, because he is a great football player and one tough S.O.B.

Let’s take a look at Romo’s career statistics: 2,592 pass attempts, 1,672 completions for a 64.5% completion percentage. That’s better than Troy Aikman’s 61.5%, Tom Brady’s 63.8%, and Eli Manning’s 58.4%. That completion percentage should be enough to prove that Romo is not the Cowboys problem. We saw Romo engineer some clutch drives this year and we also saw Romo throw games away. But is Romo the one to blame? All Quarterbacks throw interceptions, Troy Aikman threw 165 touchdowns to 141 interceptions in his career but he still won games and three Super Bowls to boot. So if Romo is such a good quarterback, why have we not made it to the Super Bowl? I think it lies with every other facet of our game.

If Romo can’t rely on the defense to make stops then how is he supposed to not go gunslinger on us? Romo needs to regain the confidence he once had with our defense under Wade Phillips. Remember in 2009 when the Cowboy’s went 13-3 and beat the Eagles in back to back games at home at the end of the season? Romo threw the ball a ton but only had 9 interceptions all year and played lights out all season long helping us win our first playoff game in 13 years. Looking at the 2009 season it’s easy to see why we were so darn good. Our defense put up 42 sacks, offense, defense, and special teams scored 43 touchdowns total, and our running backs rushed 4.8 yards per carry. We absolutely killed it in 2009. Our defense, offense, and special teams were all playing as a unit and Romo’s play reflected that.

I know there is much more to evaluate game performance than statistics, but would you rather have Romo playing for us or against us? I know many teams would love to have the quarterback we do. The Redskins need a quarterback, would you want Romo picking apart our secondary wearing that heinous burgundy and gold? Me neither.

I think the real problem is the media, specifically how closely the media follows the Cowboys and how quick they are to criticise the team. Think about it, when Josh Freeman completely bombs the season and Tampa Bay goes 4-12 we see a 15 second Sportscenter segment.

When the Cowboys lost our first game to the Jets, all I remember hearing about all week was how Romo can’t close, he’s not a clutch player; he’ll never win a Super Bowl, etc. The media loves us. They love to criticize us, they love to praise us, and it seems that they love nothing more than juicy news about any and every Dallas Cowboys Quarterback, no matter how stupid or unrelated the story may be. Don’t get me wrong I love our media coverage. It keeps me up to date on everything Cowboys related. I even read the stupid non-stories they publish just because it’s about America’s Team. We just need to start taking all media coverage of our Cowboys and our quarterback with a big grain of salt. With the Cowboys there is no middle ground, Americans either love us or love to hate us. That’s why there is so much Cowboy bashing, it sells.

Every time I get a Cowboys fan in my office I’ll ask them what their opinion of the Cowboys is and nine times out of ten they’ll blurt out that Romo is the problem and he needs to go. Of course I don’t disagree with them; try and sell something after butting heads with the customer, I dare you, and besides what customer would want to buy something after the salesman says your wrong? It just wouldn’t work out and the customer and I would both lose (I give the best deals on RVs in Texas so it would for sure be a lose/lose situation for both parties involved: I miss a sale and the customer misses a great deal). Trust me, it’s hard to keep quiet when you’re as opinionated about the Cows as me, but that’s my job so I don’t mind.

The bottom line is, if Cows fans aren’t careful, the media will warp our collective minds into thinking we don’t have a good quarterback. THIS IS FALSE. We have a great quarterback who I think can and will lead us to the promise land we call the Super Bowl in a few years. If for some reason we don’t have a new shiny Super Bowl ring in three to four years and you see me out and about in Austin or Dallas/Ft. Worth print out this article, come tell me I was wrong and I’ll buy you a beer or something (limit one per reader please, Dallas is expensive).

Romo is a great quarterback. Go Cows.

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