Cowboys Preparing for Romo's Return to Practice

The Dallas Cowboys coaching staff have begun drawing up a plan in anticipation of Tony Romo’s return to practice next week.

Romo can return to practice after he’s spent his sixth week on the injured reserve/designated to return list, but he isn’t eligible to return to game action until Week 11.

“I think, the way this works now, is they got this two-week window where they can work. You kind of do it phases,” offensive coordinator Scott Linehan told the team’s official website. “First phase is throwing, running, conditioning--you try to get that conditioning. And then we’ll try to get into that phase of that mental and have a week or so of taking snaps under center.”

As Romo gets closer, the Cowboys will have to balance preparing their Franchise QB for his return, and getting Matt Cassel--the quarterback who will actually start in the games at the ends of those two weeks--his reps.

“We’ve got to kind of see where it is, how he feels the first week, kind of get the conditioning part of it,” Linehan said. “Mentally he’s going to be fine, but the conditioning part we’ll see where he is and then kind of integrate him into practice into some way, shape or form. There’ll be some adjustment. You’ve just got to figure out how it works in the flow of practice so you don’t disrupt that for the quarterback that’s going to be playing that particular game.”