Critics Are Right: Phony Romo a Bust

I am at a newsstand, staring at the cover of a gossip magazine. On it is a photo of Jessica Simpson, lamenting the breakup of her relationship with Tony Romo and gushing that she wants him back. Except the cover refers to him simply as "Tony,'' which is absurd in that it assumes "Tony'' is a major figure in Americana when, in fact, he's an erratic and overhyped quarterback who might be benched before you can say Daisy Dukes.

Seldom do I agree with the knee-jerk opinions of retired athletes, many of whom are bitter cusses plagued by Contract Envy, Media Envy and other jealousies centered around today's stars. But when it comes to First-Name-Basis Tony, who continues to fluctuate wildly in his fourth season as an NFL starter while smoother operators such as Matt Ryan and Joe Flacco excel as sophomores, it's hard to disagree with the harsh assessments of Tony Dorsett, Emmitt Smith and Troy Aikman. Considering all are Hall of Famers who've won Super Bowl rings when Romo has yet to win a playoff game, they have the credibility necessary to criticize Romo's considerable underachievement in one of pro football's most scrutinized jobs, QB of the Dallas Cowboys. And as each periodically weighs in, I find myself nodding at just about every shot taken at Jessica's ex.

"I don't know why on God's Earth Tony Romo has been anointed a superstar in the National Football League," Dorsett said in a FOX Sports Radio interview. "Tony is very young in his career. Not to say you can't be young in your career and be a superstar because you've got one up there in Minnesota in Adrian Peterson. But the thing is this: You have a guy who hasn't done much, and quarterbacks in the NFL, most of them go through this growing curve. He hasn't gone through that growing curve, but he was anointed this great player all of a sudden. Now he's having to live up to that. And obviously Tony has some deficiencies ... I think the media has given him too much credit for doing nothing. He hasn't done anything really in the NFL to deserve all the recognition and visibility he's gotten so far."

Bravo.

Maybe it's as much a commentary on the sizzle of the Cowboys and their P.T. Barnum owner, Jerry Jones. But any perception of Romo as a marquee player, as the TV networks like to sell him, is woefully wrong. He can't win big games, whether it's a critical late-season contest, a playoff game -- he's 5-10 in December and January -- or a game such as the one Sunday night. A Week 2 meeting against the New York Giants was turned into a mega-event by Jones, who described it as "bigger than the Super Bowl'' because it was the opening regular-season game of his $1.2 billion, 73-acre colossus of a stadium. From the retractable walls that change from silver to blue (depending on the weather) to the 72-by-160-foot video board that hangs over the field like a high-tech cyclops, Jones rather ridiculously spoke of his new creation in orgasmic terms.

"I can't sleep at night,'' he said.

In other words, Jones wanted dearly to win the game and maximize his thrill. But Romo, who usually plays well in September, sabotaged his boss' dream with a dreadful performance -- 13 for 29, 127 yards, a 29.6 passer rating and three killer interceptions, all leading to Giants touchdowns in a 33-31 loss. It followed a strong outing by Romo in a Week 1 victory over Tampa Bay, against whom he threw for 353 yards and three touchdowns. This was supposed to be the year when he threaded together consistent games, grew up as a leader without any Terrell Owens distractions and took the Cowboys deep into the postseason. Instead, he already has planted a familiar seed that suggests he's doomed to a career of inconsistency. He lacks the dynamic efficiency and cool that has defined the greatest Dallas quarterbacks, Aikman and Roger Staubach.

"I think things happened so quickly for Tony -- in terms of obscurity to, all of a sudden, the national spotlight -- that he hasn't fully grasped what being the Cowboys quarterback is all about," Aikman said in the offseason.

Smith is challenging Romo to be a better leader, accusing him of not "demanding excellence'' from teammates. "I never saw him go snatch somebody up, and say, 'Hey, we can't win like this. We can't have guys jumping offsides. I can't have [a defender] coming at me unabated. Who is making the mistakes up front? Why aren't you picking this guy up? This is not going down this way. If you can't get your job done, get off the football field,' " he said.


Grouchy, old Cowboys, they are not. Having survived and thrived in the Dallas pressure cooker, they know what's required to win championships. No one is seeing a title aura in Romo, who takes too many chances and doesn't manage a game as much as he mismanages it. Last year, he has 21 turnovers in 13 games. This year, he's on the same pace. "There are some throws that you shouldn't attempt to make when you are playing certain teams," Aikman said this week. "We've seen him try and do that from time to time. When you play a team like the Giants, who match up pretty evenly talent wise, you have to be smart about those throws. Interceptions happen more in the playoffs and in bigger games in December. When the games are close, you have to be smart with the football and that has been a problem with Tony. I know the coaching staff is trying to eliminate those mistakes."

Said Dorsett: "He's not going to be on top of his game week in and week out, because this game is a very fast-moving game and he makes some decisions sometimes -- he's like a gambler man, he takes chances and sometimes those things, he gets bit in the butt by that.''

Their reactions are far more severe than his own. After every stumble -- nine times, he has had passer ratings of under 60 -- he flips his cap into backward mode and says he'll try better the next time. "I'm sorry that I wasn't able to play up to the level the rest of the other guys did," Romo said Sunday. "I have to get better at the mistakes I made and I will."

It's undeniable that Romo, as the Cowboys QB and by virtue of some strong performances in less-pressurized moments, has been anointed by the media before proving he deserves top billing. Remember, he emerged from obscurity, signing with Dallas as an undrafted free agent from Eastern Illinois. Just as major college programs in the Midwest ignored him, so did every NFL front-office boss but Jones. Is it possible the scouts had it right in the beginning? He was supposed to flourish under offensive coordinator Jason Garrett, but Romo keeps making the same mistakes in the games that matter most. Since replacing Drew Bledsoe as the starter in 2006, he has been enabled by Jones, who sorely wants Romo to become a dominant player to validate his oft-doubted status as a talent evaluator. As always, Jones is dabbling in fantasy when reality says Romo might not be a better idea than Jon Kitna, the veteran who wisely was signed as a backup. To no one's surprise, he defended Romo on his radio show this week.

"We have all the confidence in the world in Tony Romo," Jones said. "You'd like for him not to have a day like that, but when everybody is pointing fingers, when it didn't go good, then you want someone who can walk into that huddle in the next snap at practice, the next snap in the ballgame and walk out there and cut and shoot and play like they just won the Super Bowl. That's a great quarterback."

On cue, Romo's coaches and teammates also keep supporting him. "Tony's a fighter," coach Wade Phillips said. "He's going to keep after it."

"I know you guys don't see it from our perspective, but he takes a lot of things he does wrong very, very hard,'' center Andre Gurode told reporters. "I can't just imagine how he felt [Sunday] night when he went home. You see the guy [Monday], pat him on the back and say, 'Hey, we're going to correct our mistakes and get better.' ''

"The bad thing is when we win, it's all the quarterback, and when we lose it's all the quarterback," cornerback Terence Newman said. "There's times he's played bad and we've picked him up, and there's times we've played bad and Tony's picked us up."

To his credit, Romo often has bounced back from poor games to deliver solid performances the following week, which will be expected Monday night when the Cowboys host reeling Carolina. Last year, he answered a wretched game in Pittsburgh with a 113.8 passer rating in a win over the Giants. "[Quarterback] is certainly a physical position, and you've got to have the physical skills. But, at the end of the day, it's got to be someone that has a tough skin, that's got a high level of willpower,'' Jones said. "Someone that can say, 'Look, I didn't play well that play, that game,' and come back and play outstanding. The greatest of them all had many days as rough as Tony had Sunday.''

But not nearly as many. This far into his career, Romo isn't nearly as accomplished as those with comparable years of NFL experience, including Ben Roethlisberger, Philip Rivers and Eli Manning. No, the ups and downs of the Cowboys aren't all his fault, not as long as Jones stands by the overmatched Wade Phillips as his head coach and the defense -- zero sacks so far after amassing 59 last season -- gets pushed around as one of the league's worst. But in a quarterbacks league, Romo is a maddening case of having no idea what's coming from week to week, especially when Manning burns the Cowboys for 330 yards and two scores.

"It's frustrating," he said Wednesday. "I'm really disappointed in myself right now. I'm really not okay with my play right now." But not disappointed enough to stop wearing the damned backwards cap, I'm sure.

In the final analysis, he has the look of a heartbreaker. Jessica Simpson knows that much.