"Well, there's a rose in a fisted glove and the eagle flies with the dove and if you can't be with the one you love, love the one you're with"-- Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young
Ripping on Tony Romo’s personal and professional life has become sport in Dallas these days, after a disappointing playoff-less season in 2008 and an ill-advised run for the border the year before. Most of the criticism has grown incredibly hackneyed from repetition at this point: “He’s a celebrity.” “He’s never won a playoff game.” “His girlfriend is part of an abstruse curse on the heads of the Cowboys.”
Okay, maybe that last one isn’t so popular, but it might be now.
The idea that Tony Romo is a bad quarterback is proliferating, but it’s just plain wrong.
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Regardless, the developments out of Denver this week (and off-season in general) have a great many wondering if the Cowboys should bring Vanderbilt-product Jay Cutler to town. The idea, I’m sure, has certain fans giddy; but there is no chance that this deal will get done and, more importantly than that, it would be a phenomenally bad idea on the level of “smell-o-vision” if it did.
First, why would the Cowboys make a move like this one during an off-season actively aimed at making the offense more “Romo-friendly? Simply, they wouldn’t and they won’t. Romo, who had an admittedly disappointing season last year, still has a pretty nice upside.
Reading comment boards around Dallas, you’d think Romo was a bust on the level of Ryan Leaf; but he ranked eighth (8th) in passing in 2008, a year generally considered to be a botched, pathetic showing that actively hurt Dallas’ playoff hopes. The year before that, he ranked fifth (5th) in passer rating, third (3rd) for quarterbacks with 300 completions or more. Oh, and then there was that 13-3 record.
Acquiring Jay Cutler should sound like a good idea to only the most chauvinistic Romo-hater.
Namely, the number one dig on Romo is true for his Rocky-Mountain-counterpart: He has never (ever) won a playoff game. In fact, he has never seen the playoffs. In two full seasons as a starter (same as Romo) Cutler has led the Broncos to 7-9 and 8-8 records. Romo went 13-3 and 9-7 (albeit a disappointing 9-7) in those years.
I suppose Cutler isn’t a celebrity-quarterback, but then, neither is Bubby Brister and I’m not all that sure he’s the answer for the Cowboys; this is not a good measuring stick for quarterbacking.
Cutler isn’t happy. He made that loud and clear when he skipped the team’s first meeting and lamented this failed relationship in every piece of print he could find in the greater-Denver area. He will not be in Denver in 2009, but he won’t be in Dallas, either.