Yesterday, I was watching Stephen A. Smith and Skip Bayless debate Cowboys starting running back DeMarco Murray's injury, its impact on the Cowboys playoff aspirations, the extent to which backups Lance Dunbar and Joseph Randle can fill his shoes, and the fact that if Muray does not play or is inhibited by his hand injury, much of the pressure rests on Tony Romo's shoulders.
Smith, in his typically smug, Cowboy-hating manner, saw this as a reason to point out how Tony Romo is an "accident waiting to happen" and how this scenario sets up the Dallas Cowboys for failure because they will somehow, someway, but inevitably, find a way to lose. Now, aside from the faulty logic of assuming that any mistake a Cowboy of the Cowboys make inevitably proves his "prediction" of their failure correct, I find it difficult to understand how Smith can continue to cultivate such a pessimistic view of Tony Romo. Even Skip Bayless, who never misses an opportunity to counter Smith and rave about "my Cowboys," openly admits a healthy amount of anxiety at the thought of Murray missing the game and the Cowboys having to rely on Romo to win them the game. My question is - on what basis? In what reality are these pessimistic assumptions grounded? To make matters worse, ESPN posted an article on its website today offering the opinions of five NFL "experts" as to who should be the NFL MVP. Among those considered were Tom Brady, Peyton Manning, Aaron Rodgers, J.J. Watt, and DeMarco Murray. But what about Tony Romo, just a shade (1 point) behind Aaron Rodgers for the best passer rating in the NFL this season? Nowhere in sight. Without seeking to take anything away from what Murray has accomplished this season, I have to ask: why does most of America not recognize how good Tony Romo really is? The reason the Cowboys have been even competitive for most of the last eight years has been, more than anyone else, one man: Tony Romo. But Romo chokes in the fourth quarter! Actually, he leads the NFL in game-winning drives since 2006 with 27. But he always throws fourth quarter interceptions! Well, so do all QB's from time to time. Fact is, however, that Romo's career 4th quarter passer rating is 102. That's best in NFL history. But Romo doesn't win games! Well, that depends on how you define "winning games." Unless you think the other 52 players on an NFL roster are irrelevant and that therefore, a QB can only be defined by how many games "he wins:" a good way to measure how valuable a QB is to his team - and how important he is to winning games - is the team's record with vs. without him: Tony Romo is 83-51 as a starter. That's actually pretty good! Without Romo? The Cowboys are 6-9, including the offensive debacle that was the Arizona game earlier this year. The reason the Dallas Cowboys have only had limited success as a team with Romo at the helm for the last eight years is because the team itself simply hasn't been all that good. An article from the folks at Bloggingtheboys.com from August of 2014 demonstrated as much.[1] In games in which Romo played "poorly" (defined as a passer rating of 66.7 or less), the Cowboys went 2-12 (though if this season were added, he would be 2-14) for a win percentage of just 14%. The only QB's on the list with a worse record were Ryan Fitzpatrick (2-24), Derek Anderson (1-14), and Matthew Stafford (0-14). Compared to other QB's who have had success with their teams even when they have played poorly: Eli Manning (34.1% of "poor" games won), Peyton Manning (23.3%), Tom Brady (38.1%), Ben Roethlisberger (28.6%). All of those QB's have won Super Bowls. Think there might be something to the idea that it's not necessarily solely because of them that their teams have had success, but also because of the team and coaching staff around them? I'll let you contemplate that. What may actually be most impressive is the small percentage of games in which Romo plays "poorly:" just 13%. For comparison, Eli Manning clocks in at 29%, Joe Flacco at 24%, and Matthew Stafford at 23%. Upon closer inspection, Romo plays poorly less frequently than widely proclaimed superstar QB's Drew Brees (15%), Ben Roethlisberger (15%), and is just a hair above Peyton Manning (12.6%). To further illustrate this point, in Tony Romo's 124 games as a starter, the Cowboys have only won seven games in which the offense scored fewer than 20 points. In other words, if Romo's offense doesn't put up points, the Cowboys lose. The team is not good enough to compensate for a poor performance by their QB, very much unlike the Pittsburgh Steeler, NY Giant, and New England Patriot teams that won Super Bowls with their respective QB's. To return to Skip Bayless and Stephen A. Smith, who both seem to hold this belief that Romo throws an inordinate number of interceptions (much like the rest of America, as a quick "Tony Romo meme" Google search should sufficiently illustrate): for his career, 2.6% of Romo's pass attempts end up in interceptions. That is the exact same as Drew Brees, Peyton Manning, Joe Montana, and Steve Young. In fact, only 17 QB's in NFL history have lower INT rates. So why the Tony Romo pessimism? Why the paranoia? Regardless of how this Cowboys season pans out, it cannot be reasonably justified. To Skip Bayless, Stephen A. Smith: DeMarco Murray's injury hurts, but it doesn't change the fundamental reality that is the Dallas Cowboys. They will go as Tony Romo goes. In Romo's best 9 games this year, the Cowboys are 9-0. In his worst 4 (only 2 of which were truly poor), they are 1-3. If Romo plays well, the Cowboys have a good chance to beat Indianapolis and Washington in their last two games and win the NFC East. In the rare event that he does not play well, this team is generally not good enough to overcome that - with or without Murray - and the Cowboys will probably be watching the playoffs from their sofas for the fifth straight year. Romo has been one of the best QB's in the NFL this year (2nd in passer rating behind Aaron Rodgers, 3rd in QBR), and he's been very, very good for a number of years now. If it's not meant to be and the Cowboys miss the playoffs, then so be it. But there are few QB's I'd rather have at the helm of this team than Tony Touchdown. And THAT, unlike ESPN's refusal to recognize his MVP candidacy at this point, Skip Bayless' inordinate fear of a Romo-INT, and Stephen A. Smith's conviction that the QB with the third highest career passer rating in NFL history is inordinately mistake-prone, is a rational position. [1] http://www.bloggingtheboys.com/2014/8/18/5990813/ranking-nfl-quarterbacks-tom-brady-peyton-manning-aaron-rodgers-tony-romo
1 Comment
Tom Sullivan
12/17/2014 05:42:36 am
Omg here we go again.... What you people refuse to admit is that those "few" INT's that Romo throws (or mistakes in general) have consistently been at game changing times. You keep throwing around all this 4th quarter comeback king mumbo jumbo but one has to wonder what are the other variables? Could it be, that because Romo is actually so awful. it results in seemingly all of their games being close at the end, and thus creating a situation where they either win, in which case yall give all the credit to Romo; Or, they lose and yall claim it was a team loss even if it was Romo making an ill timed mistake.
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AuthorChristopher is a student in the Ph.D. program in History at the University of North Carolina. He enjoys following sports, going to church on Sundays, and discussing contemporary issues in American society. Archives
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