Opinions, statistics and analyses of Dallas Cowboys quarterback Tony Romo have been beaten into the ground deeper than a corner post in a barbed wire fence. However, the true colors of the Cowboys’ signal caller never shined brighter than they did during Dallas’ 19-13 overtime loss to the Arizona Cardinals on Sunday.
Romo is not and never will be an elite NFL quarterback. Regardless of the high praise he received from FOX color commentator John Lynch during the game, Romo simply isn’t capable of winning in the NFL.
Sure, he had a good 2007 season as Dallas finished 13-3, equally the greatest regular season in franchise history. However, Romo didn’t let us forget he’s a choker as soon as the playoffs rolled around.
Against the Cardinals on Sunday, Romo did what’s natural to him; he choked. The Cardinals presented him with a seven-point lead at the half and a chance to win the game with a last second-field goal for the third straight game. Still, Romo insisted on giving the game away to an inferior team.
The Cardinals only rushed three defenders on long passing downs in the second half and sacked Romo three times on those plays. If an NFL quarterback gets sacked by only three rushing defenders, it’s his fault, hands down. Romo had five receivers against eight Cardinals in zone coverage. That spells wide open 5-yard outs and drag routes all day long.
Romo either doesn’t know that or he reached his mental capacity on first and second down. He stared down Cowboys receiver Dez Bryant for the entirety of the game, but failed to look his way when the Cardinals were in zone coverage. If there’s one thing at which Bryant excels, it’s finding the soft spot in zone coverage.
Cardinals cornerback Patrick Peterson did a phenomenal job covering Bryant one-on-one, but Arizona consistently lost track of him while in zone coverage. On one such play during the Cowboys’ final drive, Romo went through two of his five reads before pulling the ball down and running right into the Cardinals’ three-man pass rush. Bryant was wide open 18 yards down the left sideline. Choke.
The final straw came during that final drive when Romo completed a 15-yard crossing pattern to Bryant for a first down at the Cardinals’ 31-yard line. With two timeouts and 27 seconds left, Romo didn’t even try to run another play. He got satisfied with doing something good; he didn’t attempt to be great.
For whatever reason, Romo has the physical skills to be an elite NFL quarterback, but lacks the mental capability. The pressure of winning and becoming better than just “good” scares him to the point of literally turning his back on the spotlight. When Romo gets out of his I’m-fired-up mood, he shies away from everything from the pass rush to open receivers downfield.
Until Cowboys team owner Jerry Jones realizes this, Dallas will remain an average team. Sure, the Cowboys will make the playoffs every now and then while putting together several inconsistent seasons, but Romo will never get to the Super Bowl. He will never be worth the money Jones is paying him or the praise he receives from the Cowboys’ naïve owner and pretend general manager. You can argue about Romo until you’re literally Cowboys blue in the face, but you can’t argue with the fact he just can’t do it.
Follow Jeric Griffin on Twitter @JericGriffin
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[...] game-winning field goal for the third straight game. He indeed drove the Cowboys down the field, but choked under pressure when the Cardinals dropped eight defenders in zone coverage, a situation in which an elite NFL quarterback would [...]
You’re a idiot
Get a clue. Is this article a joke?? Romo has done more good for this team than bad. You’re an idiot!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!1
You do know that it wasnt Romo but Jason Garrett who decided to not call the timeouts… get your facts straight retard
You are a moron. This game was NOT Romo’s fault in the least and the blame falls entirely on Garrett and the defense that continues to make terrible QB’s look like solid QB’s and average QB’s look like Pro Bowlers
There are plenty of instances where Romo can be (all too often lazily) accused of “choking” by the media but to claim Romo “choked” in this game is bizarrely and completely off base.
It wasn’t Romo’s fault we lost…you need to learn more about football if you believe that:P
Seriously? who lets morons like you write articles? Did you not watch the game? IDIOT…Tell me how is Romo leading them down the field for field goal range choking? get a real job and stop writing nonsense articles.
This GUY is fucking stupid why would you let him post anything off a bunch of lies! Tony Romo isn’t the Coach Jason Garrett is and everyone makes mistakes Romo will win a title and Garrett can be the coach of the future this team has worked hard to get where they are at. Any good team can lose to a team with a losing record did you not see the saints lose to the fuckin ST.louis Rams! Obviously this guy is a hater and I let my Haters be my motivators. Romo would Agree.
Well Jeric,
It gets worse, there are so-called Cowboys fan out here who couldn’t see a bad combination of Owner, GM, Head Coach, and QB to save their life. All this crap about this is not Tony Romo’s fault shows you what you’re dealing with. Blind fans who don’t know diddly squat.
Truth be told. It’s up to the head coach to manage his QB. Jason Garrett should have realized that by now. Instead he turns the reins over to this guy and watches him mess up drive after drive. Even after game press conferences are filled with glittering bull crap, about what they thought at the time. Trying to cover up the fact that leadership on this team is rife with second guessing and hesitancy.
BUllSh*t……. It was all Garrett & Ryans fault…. They BOTH SUCK!!
You’re just scared, Jeric. And you as well, robbo. Gather your sack, and hang on. Tony is gonna either take us where we wanna go, or he’s not. Bitchin’ and moanin’ ain’t gonna get it done; it’s outta your hands anyway…PEACE.
Yeah he choked against the Giants when Patrick Crayton dropped the touchdown pass that would have sealed the game.
Or it was Romo fault for Icing his own kicker yesterday.
Romo is a loser! Garrett is a special teams coach! Rex Ryan is useless! All facts that will prevent this once great team from being anything other than second rate! Jerry, if you can’t get out of the way, at least buy a better team infrastructure that actually knows the entirety of putting together a team and then, coaching them to a winning season.
Get your facts straight it’s Rob Ryan(Rex is the Jets coach). Jason Garrett was a QB coach and Offensive coordinator, never a special teams coach. Rob Ryan is one of the best D Coordinator in the NFL.Romo is a very good QB(not elite until he wins,which he will before he leaves Dallas. It sounds like you know nothing about football,and my opinion is to learn the game before you spout off at the mouth!!!!
This loss is all on Jason Garrett, what the hell was he thinking?
24 sec. left ball on AZ 32, CALL A FUKKING TIME OUT and run 2-3 more plays.
I have never seen worse clock management,and I’m a Cowboys fan living in Philly(been watching Andy Reid screw up the clock for years) but this was the worst.If this causes them to miss the playoffs Garrett should be fired
There is no excuse for what he did(or did not do)!!
This person is an idiot! Romo simply cant win in the NFL???? umm, hes proved haters wrong many times.. and you blame yesterdays loss on him? do you know football? did you not see him march the Offense down the field to get in field goal range? i dont see how people like you are allowed to even write about sports
Are you really serious? Wow, as a writer you really should put your bias against, and hatred for certain players aside…I mean, that’s what a GOOD writer does anyway. Well wait, that’s the problem these days, we got BLOGGERS who think they are writers. No wonder REAL writers are pissed today, you’ve got people with 0 intelligence who want to just talk shit out of their ass.
Who else would you put in at QB thats better? That’s available? Idiot! It’s the fucking leadership…AKA…COACHING. They have improved under Garrett, but still make the same mental mistakes they did under Phillips. Guess who was coaching out offense when Phillips was there? GUESS? That’s right, Garrett. Romo played his best the year after Parcells left. He was still mentally a “Parcells” player. Then you bring in weak ass coaches and then Romo regresses. You think Tom Brady would be Tom Brady without Belichek? You fuckin fools don’t know your ass from a hole in the ground. Wake the fuck up and learn something before you spew horse shit out of your cockpockets. We need a stronger head coach that doesn’t constantly make mental mistakes with his play calling.
Garretts best year was in ’07 also..when NOBODY knew who the fuck he was as a coach. Since then he has failed to adapt when everyone else caught onto his scheme….and Romo has no choice but to TRY to execute the dumb ass plays that Garrett calls. So how can anyone expect Romo to succeed when he Head coach keeps fucking it up for him. I’m not taking away responsibility from Romo, he has fucked up plenty of times. But it’s a team sport. You can’t make an accurate pass if you don’t have time to throw the fucking ball.
This is an idiotic piece of writing! Romo is a top five rated QB right now. Without him, this team is probably 3-8 right now. Yesterday’s loss is not on him.
C’mon dude…. Look at Romo’s numbers…. You can call him a “non elite” QB becau you couldn’t make it in any sport, so you became a spots journalist… F$&!ing moron!!
At the end of the day, get off Romo and Garretts nuts…. Dan Bailey gets paid to make those kicks, he choked… No one else
I have been an avid Tony Romo supporter since before he started. I constantly implored on various Cowboys forums for Parcells to bench Drew Bledsoe and put in the whizkid, Romo. I finally got my wish.
People always say “He has done more good than bad.” “The Cowboys would not be where they are without Tony Romo.” Well, the second statement is unfortunately true. Mediocrity is the Cowboys name.
Tony can do great things like a European circus performer at times. But, too often, or just often enough, he drops the spinning plates or puts the knife into his attractive target.
I have no doubt that with this team of struggling offensive linemen and inconsistent defensive secondary that a guy like Drew Brees, Tom Brady, or Aaron Rodgers, or even Cam Newton in his first year would have the Cowboys in a much better place. And that is quite a range, from the best to the rookie.
I use great, proven QB’s as substitutions because that is what people insist that Tony Romo is, too. Just a few games away from showing that he’s got the right stuff. And that will, I think, be the career path of Tony Romo. Always just a few games away…
Tony SELDOM EVER RISES UP to take CONTROL of a game, game after game. He teases for flashes and then disappears the following week against a mediocre opponent. Or totally falls apart with a really tough opponent.
As this writer states, it is a mentality that Tony, by now, it is clear, does not possess. He wants to have it, he talks about having it, he talks about “improving” and “learning” but he is a slow, slow learner. Imagine where Cam Newton will be 6 years down the road.
Look at where Tony Romo is after his sixth season. People still refer to him as “learning”. His inconsistency reflects, inevitably, INABILITY. What you see in Tony Romo is all that he is after six years, 9 years total in the NFL. 31 years old.
His blindness to receivers being open is killing them when they reach the opponents’ side of the field. The inability to score for entire halves of games, settling for 3 point field goals time after time, game after game, is KILLING the Cowboys.
Hasn’t anybody equated the Offensive lack of explosiveness with Tony Romo? It is his own inconsistency from play to play that has killed the Cowboys, that has kept too many opponents in games because the Cowboys can’t finish drives with points often enough to pull out ahead and give some needed rest to the inept Cowboys defense.
I like Tony. I see his whizbang plays where you say, Cool, Wow! And then I sit with clenched teeth on every play, not with an ounce of confidence that he is IN CONTROL. After how many years of watching him.
So, yes, I think the book is just about written on Tony Romo. He may well be the starter for the next couple of years but he is never taking the Cowboys to the Super Bowl.
This team will never be great without an above average defense. It wasn’t Romo, Garrett, or Bailey that allowed a 52 yd swing pass to a running back to win the game, or the defense getting a defensive holding, automatic 1st down on a 2nd and 19 in overtime. The defense always seems to get off the hook, but they’ve allowed below average qb’s to look like probowlers over the past few weeks (Grossman, Moore, Kolb..) The defense hasn’t shown up in winning time, except for the first Redskins game.
on a side note, DeCamillis needs to go…
Who do you trust more in winning time, Romo or the defense? Romo has shown the ability to put this team in positions to win games, where the defense has shown the ability to stop no one in the passing game, particularly in 2nd halves of games..and don’t give me this sh.. that Romo lost the Jets game, or he lost the lions game, the defense and special teams had a big role in both of those losses
and as for the giants/cowboys playoff game from 2007, the defense gave up a 71 yard TD drive in 46 seconds to end the 1st half of that game…totally changed the momentum and confidence of the Giants in that game..once again, failed in winning time
As I say, I have always been a Romo supporter, even before he was named starter.
And after each season I also hoped they would assemble all the pieces around him. Dez was supposed to be one of the pieces where they went all in to get him. The Difference Maker!
But, yes, crappy defense, crappy offensive line.
But for those games where people point to the defense giving up big plays to change momentum or lose a game that “Tony had won” look at the even greater number of games over these past years that Tony had a huge hand in losing! Tony has thrown so many game-changing picks that the media and the fans GET EXCITED when he can go 3 games without interceptions! Or “just 2″!
Go back game-by-game and look at the defenses dragged back out on the field because Tony and crew can’t stay on the field, have to punt.
How many games are lost because Tony and crew cannot find a touchdown in the red zone to save their lives? It has ALREADY HAPPENED THIS SEASON!
Put that together with a porous secondary where a has-been like Terence Newman IS our best player back there and gets beat like a drum, and you have MEDIOCRE.
Tony is entertaining, he is talented. He can do amazing things. He just cannot consistently find his guys who are open. I have seen lots of video of this season. He has missed so many wide open opportunities. People say, well, it was the coverage, receivers just were not open. Wrong. Tony has left a lot of scoring out there on the field.
I would love it if he would get better but, I have been waiting for years. How can you look at Tony from week to week and say, hey, look how much better he is than when he started?
He’s got stats, he just does not have touchdowns. He has cut down on interceptions but to do that he has also cut down on scoring.
He cannot manage both. And that is a sign that he will not reach the next level. He can only focus on one thing at a time. If he pushes himself to throw touchdowns he nicks those stats with interceptions or fumbles. If he pushes to eliminate interceptions his ability to score gets whittled away.
He goes curiously brain dead every couple of weeks!
I LIKE him, but, DANG!
Most idiotic article ever. This tool must be an Eagles or Giants fan, because he obviously has no idea what he’s talking about. He’s a great quarterback, look at the numbers. Tony Romo has a much better chance at winning a Super Bowl then this clown does of writing an article that isn’t moronic and inaccurate.
Jeff F,
I agree 100%! The facts about Tony Romo are what they are. How long did it take Peyton Manning to win one? He’s considered one of the best. With all the hype he gets, he’s only one 1 damn Super Bowl. Same with Favre…media and fans built these guys up because of their stats. With the most important stat being…THEY BOTH HAVE ONE (1) SUPER BOWL! Granted, Manning is obviously more clutch than Tony and has had more playoff wins…but he has been in the league and an actual starter longer. But what does more playoff wins mean to Peyton or Colts fans?? Bet you, not a DAMN thing!! Because in the end it’s still only 1 Super Bowl win under him. Problem is, Romo is constantly compared to the “GREATS” of yesterday and today. Why? Maybe he’s just slightly above average…the way he plays. There’s only about 3-4 QB’s I’d take over him, but they are franchise QB’s for other teams..so that’s out the window. People need to kick back with all this bullshit about “HE’S NEVER GOING TO WIN ONE…” How the hell do you KNOW that for a fact? YOU DON’T. So don’t set yourself up to look foolish.
All these ROMO HATERS are so focused on blaming him, they are blinded by the fact of what he’s had to work with…Since Parcells left, we have had 2 shitty head coaches, a struggling O line, and a defensive secondary that couldn’t cover a baby with a fucking blanket. How many times has Dallas’ defense given up the big play at the end of the game when we were winning in the last several years? A LOT!! That’s not Romo’s fault.!! GET YOUR HEADS OUT OF YOUR ASSES PEOPLE!!!
David H,
You come with a lil more insight, and you have good points, but in the end, it’s not him, look at the defense. Go back and watch all the game in the last few years and you tell me how many you see where the D fucked it up and you might change your mind…