The Landry Hat
Fansided

What is Tony Romo’s future with the Dallas Cowboys?

By Tyrone Starr

facebooktwitterreddit

Is time running out for quarterback Tony Romo and the Dallas Cowboys?

Back on October 29, 2006, Dallas Cowboys quarterback Tony Romo had his first career start against the Carolina Panthers, resulting in a win that helped right the Cowboys ship that season.

Going into that game, Dallas was 3-3, trailing the division leading Philadelphia Eagles and coming off a loss to the New York Giants.  Their season was going nowhere as they would win a game, then lose a game, usually due to poor quarterback play from then-incumbent Drew Bledsoe.

More from The Landry Hat

Then head coach Bill Parcells saw the writing on the wall.  He knew that Bledsoe could not give the team what it needed and turned an unknown kid to get things moving in the right direction.

Ten games later, Romo led the Cowboys to a Wild Card berth at 9-7 and came within a bobbled snap on a field goal attempt from advancing into the playoffs.

Almost exactly nine years and a month later, the complete antithesis of this scenario occurred.

Romo, facing the Carolina Panthers on Thanksgiving, looked more like Bledsoe did when he was pulled forever and less like that kid that pumped life into a struggling team.

The decisions of the current head coach have already been made this time, however.  Instead of Jason Garrett pulling Romo in favor of a backup, Romo is now once again out of an extended period of time that will almost certainly encompass the rest of the season.

Unfortunately, it seems slightly appropriate to wonder about the direction this team will take when it comes to the most important position on the field.

Let’s pause for a brief second so I can be very clear when I say this.

Tony Romo will be the starting quarterback for the Dallas Cowboys in 2016.  Tony Romo should be the starting quarterback when the season starts next year.  Lastly, the Cowboys should not remove Romo from this perch.

Not yet… but the time to do so is a lot closer than all of us may have thought just two weeks ago.

Maybe it was the extended two month layoff.  Maybe it was a really good Carolina Panthers defense.  Maybe it was all the pressure of being the “savior” for a team that did nothing but bury themselves in too deep a hole from which to escape.  Maybe it was a combination of all those things.

All I know is that if you remove two extremely horrible decisions, both resulting in pick sixes for the Panthers defense, and replace them with sacks or throwaway passes, the Cowboys are only down 9-6 at halftime and have a shot.

Instead, two of the worst throws in Romo’s entire career not only put this team in an insurmountable deficit, they may have also sealed his fate when it comes to his injury.

I know that the running game was absolutely non-existent.  Darren McFadden contributed just three yards on nine carries up to the point of the injury.  I also know that you can certainly threaten to run down only three points instead of 24 points they were down when the injury happened.

This is about more than just one game though.  There is concern surrounding Romo that needs to be taken into consideration.

In 2010, Romo fractured his left clavicle six games into the season and missed the rest of the year due to the injury.

In 2013, Romo missed some offseason workouts due to a cyst removal from his spine.  Later on that year, he had another surgery to repair a herniated disc from his back, causing him to miss the final game of that season as well as a major portion of the 2014 training camp.

Now, in 2015, the same clavicle that was fractured five years ago has done so, twice, causing Romo to miss all but four games this year.

Only five quarterbacks in the NFL that are starters for their respective teams are older than Romo.  Only one of them has had as many injuries over the last five years as Romo.  We all know how that’s working out for Peyton Manning.

The fact is that football is an extremely violent and physical game which takes it toll on you physically.  Trying to play it with four serious injuries, three to the same exact spot, over a five year span makes it that much harder.  It’s not a coincidence that Romo’s two worst games in the last two seasons have both occurred on Thanksgiving, when there is little time to recover on a short week.

Can he ever play another Thanksgiving game without it being a horror show?  Should he even try to?  How much does he realistically have left in the tank?

Next: Eight Tony Romo replacements for the Cowboys in 2016

These are all questions that this organization, and Romo himself, needs to find the honest answers too.  The Cowboys cannot afford another season like this one however.  Measures but be taken to make sure that the next injury to Romo doesn’t cripple all hope of winning.

The clock isn’t just ticking.  The alarm is about to go off.

Are the Cowboys awake enough to be prepared or will the snooze button set this team’s future back again?

Home/Cowboys News