It's starting to become very hard to defend Tony Romo around here.
The Dallas Cowboys quarterback puts up some eye-popping stats, has some phenomenal regular-season wins — some in comeback fashion — but has ultimately failed in crunchtime. It's looking more and more like that might not be coincidence after his latest failure, which no doubt was a bad performance in last week's win-or-go-home game against the Redskins in D.C.
After Romo's three-interception game, including his last in the final minutes, the second-guessers came out in full force, including the latest, Gil Brandt.
Brandt, a rather famous personnel guru who worked for the Cowboys for a long time, said he believes the Cowboys should finally just cut ties with their franchise quarterback (make no mistake, he is a franchise quarterback).
Brandt says Romo simply doesn't have "it" despite his more than solid stats. True? Very possibly, but other than 2007 when Patrick Crayton's drop cost the Cowboys a playoff game to the eventual world champion New York Giants, Romo hasn't had a lot of talent around him either. This season was undoubtedly the worst with a patchwork offensive line and a talented, yet ridiculously thin receiving corps. Yet, Romo was fantastic over the second half of the season to get the Cowboys into position to play for a playoff berth last week. Granted, Romo was awful in that game, and he deserves blame for that.
But just what are the Cowboys going to do if they let Romo go? Who will they bring in that will be any better? And what good will it do when they still have a terrible offensive line and consequently nothing resembling an NFL running game?
Remember the last big-stat, big-name quarterback that couldn't win the big game? Hint: His old team played Sunday and his new team had a bye. Peyton Manning took Romo's public scrutiny for years before he won a Super Bowl and went to another with the Indianapolis Colts. Am I comparing Romo's talent to Manning's? No, but their public standing is awfully similar.
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The main thing to remember here is to ask yourself where the Cowboys will go if they cut ties with Romo? Hate to tell you, but there's no Andrew Luck to be had. Nothing even close.
