AUSTIN, Texas — One should never fault a person for not being who you want them to be.
We're all wired differently, after all.
In the case of Dallas Cowboys quarterback Tony Romo, he's being asked to be someone he's not. Romo isn't Roger Staubach. He isn't Troy Aikman. He isn't even Danny White. Yeah, that Danny White. The one who quarterbacked Dallas to three NFCtitle games.
Romo plays hard and tries his best, but trying hard and putting out an honest day's effort doesn't mean he'll lead the Cowboys to a Super Bowl.
Long before Romo completed 45 percent of his passes for a paltry 127 yards with three interceptions Sunday, I already considered him average at best. And while the New York Giants rank as one of the NFL's premier defenses, the book on Romo is easy to figure out. He's good against bad teams - he was Dan Marino-esque with 353 yards and three touchdowns in the opener against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers - and he's not so good against very good teams (see Giants).
So let's not ask him to change the script.
He is who he is.
Romo is the fun-loving, backward-cap wearing athlete who appears more comfortable doing commercial spots for "Sports Center" than he does running the two minute offense with his team trailing. He looks the part of an NFL quarterback, but doesn't always play the role well.
The ESPN folks conducted a poll on their Web site at halftime of Monday night's game and posed this question: Will the Cowboys win a Super Bowl with Romo at quarterback? Eighty five percent responded in the negative.
The results came one night after Romo's opponent, Eli Manning, the youngest member of football's first family, left Arlington, Texas, with an important division victory, spoiling an open house for 105,000-plus fans. Manning stood strong in the face of a fierce pass rush, and made the plays when he had to make them. This Eli Manning is better than the one who won a Super Bowl two years ago. Romo hasn't progressed over the same time frame.
In short, Manning played like a first-round draft choice leading a confident offense down the field with the game on the line. Look at what the Giants do. They run the football. Then they run it some more. And when the time comes for the quarterback to move the offense with his arm, Manning has shown himself capable.
While Manning cut his teeth at Ole Miss against SEC defenses, Romo played at Eastern Illinois, not exactly a quarterback factory. By and large, most good NFL quarterbacks were tested in college. For every Kurt Warner who showed up 11 years ago as an unknown from NFL Europe by way of Northern Iowa, there are 100 others who arrived in the league with a semblance of a pedigree.
So, again ... let's not blame Romo for being who he is.
If you must assess blame, Jerry Jones gets a big chunk. He gave Romo nearly $70 million and with that came expectations. Expectations of a first playoff victory since 1996 and of a first Super Bowl appearance since 1995.
While we're at it, let's not blame Romo for cashing that lottery ticket- that's what we do in America - even after last year's season-ending 44-6 embarrassment in Philadelphia, when he told us media types that if not making the playoffs was the worst thing to happen to him, then he would be fine. That's never a good thing to say on a day your team didn't score a touchdown.
What followed was a torrent of criticism from all directions in the off-season, including some pointed words from Cowboys legend Emmitt Smith, who indicated during a preseason radio interview that he didn't view Romo as a quarterback who would get after a teammate during a game for not playing well.
Smith is right. I never considered Romo a huge leader and Sunday was an example of why it will be difficult for the Cowboys to ever win anything substantial with him behind center. And while the departed Terrell Owens posted on his Twitter account that "Dallas just found out it has T.R. problem and not a T.O. problem," the real responsibility falls at Jones' feet.
Romo is the guy he plucked off the practice squad and made a millionaire.
It's obvious he paid too much for this young clunker.
Sports, Pages 20 on 09/24/2009