One never expects a parent to call their baby ugly. So it come as no surprise that Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones thinks the quarterback he has is better than the quarterbacks he has no shot at getting.
Some Dallas area reporter asked Jones the silly question if he would trade quarterback Tony Romo for Andrew Luck or Robert Griffin III. Jones thinks Romo is better than the incoming rookies are.
Stephen Jones, Jerry’s son and Cowboys vice president added, “There are not many better than him out there. I hear it — he hasn’t gotten it done yet. I hear it, all of that. But you are not going to find much better than Tony Romo. Every year he improves. As he gets better, our (playoff) chances get better.”
Cowboys, love then or hate them. The haters love to deride Romo for the team’s lack of playoff success. So media coverage blows up when Jones states the obvious — that Romo is a top-tier quarterback playing well above his draft status who keeps the Cowboys in contention when they ought not be.
Romo has a 47-30 record since starting for the Cowboys in 2006. He has thrown 149 touchdown passes against 72 interceptions. His career passer rating is 96.9. His 102.5 rating was fourth best for the 2011 season. At least 25 teams would grab him in a heartbeat if he were available.
The season captured the frustration about Romo and the Cowboys. Too often, Dallas needed Romo to win games he had already “‘won” by leading the team to safe fourth-quarter leads. Even Cowboys fans questioned the comeback win against San Francisco before we know how good the 49ers would become. The home loss to the Giants fell on Romo after he threw four TD passes to put the Cowboys comfortably ahead with five minutes to go.
The defense squandered the lead, but Romo was criticized for not bringing the team back. Giants running back Ahmad Bradshaw said on the NFL Network that the Cowboys would not win a Super Bowl with Romo at quarterback.
“I don’t see it happening,” Bradshaw said this month. “I don’t think they believe it and they are America’s Team. If America don’t believe it….”
Bradshaw may have been unduly influenced former Cowboys and NFL-N cheerleaders Michael Irvin, who expressed the same thought, and Deion Sanders who crooned “I belieeve in Eli (Manning).”
What’s an owner to do? Jones is not wrong for pointing out that neither Luck nor Griffin have yet to do in the NFL what Romo has accomplished. We only think they will do as well. We do not know if they will lead their team to the Promised Land. Romo, however, will not silence his critics until he leads Dallas to a Super bowl.
The story is not newsworthy, but it’s slow in Dallas, where the Cowboys do not figure in trade rumors. Jones’ comment is the perfect foil for the media to troll for hits by dropping the names Luck and Griffin.
Lesson learned.
