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Making the Case For Tom Brady As NFL MVP

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This was the year that Tony Romo finally figured it out — he learned that he didn’t have to do absolutely everything himself in order for his team to win. In a year where the Dallas Cowboys‘ coaches helped him reach this realization by taking some of the play calling responsibilities from him, he finally became the clear leader of the team, and at the same time also became the one player who the Cowboys cannot be without. This is the very definition of who the MVP is; it’s not who has the gaudiest stats for the year or who sells the most jerseys, it’s who was the most important element in your team’s success for that season.

For years Romo had to run for his life behind a porous offensive line as he dipped, dodged and scrambled his way to making spectacular plays simply to keep his team in the game. But with these spectacular plays sometimes came spectacular turnovers, and this is what caused most of the criticism he has received over the years.

The team never had a consistent running game to help take some of the pressure off of him, so as a result, opposing defenses would have their safeties sit back in coverage while their front seven would simply pin their ears back on blitzes trying to get to Romo. And when teams know that you don’t have a running back who can punish you for this type of strategy, that’s usually a recipe for disaster for your quarterback.

Well, in an attempt to keep Romo’s back healthy, and at the same time keep their defense off the field, the Cowboys’ coaches decided to lean more on their running game this year, and the results ended up speaking for themselves. Now that teams could no longer blitz the Cowboys on almost every play, Romo had a ton of time to scan the field, find the open man, and show off that accurate and powerful arm of his.

He wound up having the highest completion percentage of his career by completing 69.9 percent of his passes, which led the league, tied his career low in turnovers with 12, only nine of which were interceptions, and led the league in quarterback rating at 113, also a career and league high. He passed for 3,700 yards, threw for 34 touchdowns, and had an average of 8.5 yards per completion, all while being a part of an offense that had the league’s leading rusher in Demarco Murray. For those who think that anyone could have put up these numbers with that offense, just go back and look at what the team did when Brandon Weeden was handed the keys to the offense for a week — total disaster!

What’s more important is that as the season went on, his numbers improved. In the month of December, a four game stretch where the team needed to win in order to lock up a playoff spot, Romo played his best by completing 76 percent of his passes while throwing for 987 yards, 12 touchdowns and only one interception.

He continued this stellar play in the playoffs, and if it wasn’t for a terrible reversal of an amazing Dez Bryant catch in Green Bay, he might still been leading this team into Sunday’s game in Arizona. So when you look at all of what he was able to accomplish this season, the media seriously needs to forget all of their Romo bashing from the past and give the man what he deserves this year, and that’s the league MVP.

Kelly Anderson is a blogger for www.RantSports.com. Follow him on Twitter @bgipp01 or add him to your network on Google.

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