Romo’s greatest asset?  His age

By Anthony Bialy  |   Thursday, March 13, 2008  |  Comments( 0 )

Dallas Cowboys
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Can Tony Romo really only be 27? While he does have a birthday next month, he’s still only started 26 regular season games, too, which is remarkable because it seems as if he’s been a mainstay in Dallas for far longer than since mid-2006. It’s going to take the Cowboys until this year’s Week 1 to overcome the sting of their playoff loss to the Giants, knowing that they missed out on the prospect of being the gallant team that eventually toppled the Patriots. But one thing that will ease the recovery is the reminder that the franchise could be set at quarterback for the next decade.

Romo’s journey to one of the game’s premier passers is a years-long overnight success story. He’s gone from an undrafted third-stringer who may have stuck with Dallas only because of Quincy Carter’s personal crises all the way to a star, and all since 2003. It took him awhile to get to this point, but he began shining immediately once he got the opportunity.

He didn’t leave college as preordained football royalty, either. Instead of getting a starting job based on his prominence, he climbed the ladder after ending up as a free agent out of Eastern Illinois, establishing himself with a good combine, making the team as a third quarterback, and playing well in preseason contests before stepping in for a declining, limited Drew Bledsoe. In this respect, the amazing thing about Romo is not that he’s already so valuable but rather that he got to the position where he could make himself valuable to begin with.

The best reflection of Romo’s current worth is his passer rating, which stood at an impressive 97.4 for this past season. That was fifth-best in the league, a number that reflects both his accuracy (64.4 percent for 2007) and ability to hurl the ball downfield (4,211 passing yards). Factor in his 36 touchdowns, which is even more extraordinary compared to his 19 interceptions over 520 attempts, and it’s gotten to the point where fans can almost assume that they’ll get a proficient game from their thrower. Could anyone have foreseen this three or even two years ago today?

Even in cases where Romo has had rough patches, such as, um, in the last game he played, it can’t usually be pinned entirely on him: their playoff loss was largely a result of him being left undefended by a usually-robust offensive line, one that strangely looked tentative and confused.

Of course, the fact that his team’s defensive counterparts seemed at the time to be letting Eli Manning coolly raise his game’s level didn’t help, either, although in retrospect we may have simply have been witnessing the opposing quarterback’s latent talent finally emerging. Besides, Romo still has plenty of chances ahead to show that he can be as sharp in the postseason as he is in the 16 previous games.

It’s also important to remember that, even though the past two Januaries ended up going poorly for Dallas, simply making the playoffs in consecutive seasons is a fair accomplishment in the salary cap era. On top of that, it’s not as if they’ve peaked: does anyone think that Romo can’t lead them to a third straight postseason trip? With fans grumpy and questions regarding competence pestering a coach who won 13 regular season games, it’s a good time to keep in perspective that Romo is of course good but more importantly won’t even be 30 until the 2010 season.

That should assuage some grouchiness from followers of a team that had Super Bowl designs, as their quarterback is obviously good but more importantly got good at a young time in his life and early time in his career. Romo is not only in high gear but also basically just getting rolling.
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