After the loss to Kansas City I said that something looked "off" about the Cowboys offense and Tony Romo in particular. But coming off the previous week where Romo had another bout of bruised ribs and being early in the season, I thought, "we'll just see how things go".
Then the Cowboys beat the Rams easily and scored 30 some odd points. But then last week the Cowboys lost to the Chargers and once again looked off on offense, scoring 0 points in the 2nd half.
Now readers will immediately say, it's not the offense's fault or Tony Romo's fault they lost to San Diego, because the Cowboys defense totally sucked. I agree completely. I'm not going to talk about this one particular loss, but I am focusing on how Tony Romo looks, or more specifically how he looks different.
After the Chargers loss, my wife and I were discussing the Cowboys and their plethora of problems on both offense and defense, when we began to discuss how Romo and the Offense looks different. That led us to discuss how what really looks different is how Romo plays much more conservatively compared to previous gunslinger years. He collapses before even being sacked, let alone scrambling. He throws balls away instead of trying to squeeze one in a tight spot. In fact Romo's QB rating, percentage completions, TD/INT ratio is in the top 3 or 4 in every category as compared to all the other Quarterbacks in the league. In fact one could say he looks as consistent as Alex Smith.
But there in lies the problem. Do you want Tony Romo and all of his skills to play like Alex Smith? Again, I'm not blaming Romo. If you were Romo, wouldn't you do the same? He gets criticized for throwing to many interceptions, all losses in the last 6 years have squarely been put on his shoulders. He's had a broken collar bone, he's had broken ribs, he's had a punctured lung. All of this and he gets blamed for the losses, but never really gets any of the praise for the wins. Those of us who have watched the Cowboys consistently and don't listen to the "experts" on ESPN know that the only reason the Cowboys have been 8-8 the past few season is because for every game Romo loses, he also wins twice that many because the rest of the Cowboys defense, special teams, offensive line, etc. have all sucked ever since he became the starting QB.
But what's obvious now is that Romo has said "eff" it. I'm not doing it any more. I'm not going to take a beating to my body, I'm not going to throw the costly interception trying to make something happen late in the game, I'm not going to take all of the media and fan bashing that the loss is on my shoulders for nothing. "Eff" it. I'm going to go out there, put up a QB rating of well over 100, have a completion percentage rate among the highest in the league, I'm not going to throw any INTs (unless a stupid wide receiver runs the wrong route), I'm not going to get pounded and break more bones. I'm not going to play like Romo. And you can't blame him. After the Chargers game he was able to say (without saying it verbally), loss wasn't my fault. I didn't throw any INTs, I didn't try to squeeze one in and get picked off on the last drive to lose the game, I didn't get knocked out of the game with broken ribs. Nope, the loss was the defenses fault, the loss was the Wide Receiver's fault for fumbling the ball, the loss was the play calling by the coaches. It wasn't on Romo, the loss was on the rest of the team. Of course he went to the podium and said all the politically correct things and didn't blame anyone. But the one thing he didn't have to say, was answer to questions about his play. Because his play wasn't questioned. His stats were great. At the post game press conference, the play calling was questioned, the running game was questioned, the defense was questioned, the decision to kick the 56 yard field goal was questioned, but Romo's play was not questioned. So who can blame him for becoming Alex Smith, it's a much easier road to travel both mentally and physically.
Also, I think Jason Garret has preached to Romo to be more conservative. All of this together, Romo is not Romo any longer. And again who can blame him.
However, as always this poor excuse for a team needs the real "Romo" in order to win. We have too many years of mismanagement by the GM, Jerruh Jones, to win with Romo being a bus driver.
Oddly enough, after my wife and I had this discussion, I found two articles basically demonstrating the same thing. One is from Dallascowboys.com the other from my favorite blog by Bob Sturm. Click on the links below to read their analysis which includes hard data to back up my hypothesis about Romo.
Bob Sturm decoding-callahan-week-4-san-diego.html
Dallascowboys.com Running-the-Numbers-Romo-Isnt-Throwing-Enough-Interceptions
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