Tony Romo: Did Everyone Forget They Hate Him?
By Randy Gurzi
People have spent the better part of 10 years hating everything about Tony Romo, but now that he will be leaving the Dallas Cowboys he has become loved
Everyone has heard it. The Dallas Cowboys will never win with Tony Romo at quarterback. He can’t win the big one, he’s turnover-prone, and of course a choke artist. For years Cowboys fans had to put up with the non-stop insults as if Romo owned the worst record in the history of the NFL.
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No one gave him credit for being one of the top undrafted quarterbacks of all-time. He rose from a small school, Eastern Illinois, to eventually lead the most popular franchise in all of sports in every career passing statistic. Had any other team signed Romo he would have been a success story.
But in Dallas he is somehow an underachiever, despite the fact that he wasn’t even invited to participate at the scouting combine other than to throw to receivers so the “good” quarterbacks didn’t get tired.
Had he been on any other team, there wouldn’t be articles out there like the one on Bleacher Report called “Cowboys will Never Win Super Bowl With Inconsistent Quarterback“ in which Romo is pointed to as the only source of losses in Dallas. An excerpt from Ryan Rudnanasky’s piece:
"…despite all his accolades, has yet to lead the Dallas Cowboys past the divisional playoffs in his career. And you can forget about him leading the Cowboys to a championship."
He also wouldn’t be considered overrated had he been wearing anything other than the star. Plus, NFL.com wouldn’t have taken a shot at him for not being the No. 1 most overrated player by referencing the belief that he cannot win the big one, per Dan Hanzus:
"Romo still can’t win the big one, even in ‘most overrated’ poll"
Because he played for Dallas those things were said. His 30 career game-winning drives were ignored and his career record of 78-49 was mocked. People even focused solely on his 117 career interceptions while ignoring his 248 touchdown passes and 97.1 career quarterback rating.
Don’t think the hate was simply because of his helmet? Then read the headlines now.
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Sports Day Dallas published a piece by Ryan Clark entitled “If Houston Texans are serious about winning now, they’ll sign Cowboys QB Tony Romo.” It’s not just the Texans though, Romo apparently is also good enough to make the Denver Broncos contenders again too. A column from Mark Kiszla of the Denver Post holds the title “Why Tony Romo could be the best answer at quarterback for the next Broncos coach”
There’s also ties to the Kansas City Chiefs and Washington Redskins. Of course, Romo would make those teams contenders too!
It’s laughable really. Tony Romo is an overachiever that made a great career for himself after being undrafted. While he didn’t win a Super Bowl in Dallas, it never meant he was incapable of doing so—he just didn’t have the team around him to win it all. Football is the ultimate team sport and Romo got stuck in Dallas while they were completely dysfunctional when it came to team-building.
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Hopefully he can head somewhere else and find success and, when/if he does, he needs to remind all those who praise him that they once hated him. Because it’s obvious that everyone seems to forget they did.