Expect an extension for Romo to get done
By Len Pasquarelli
ESPN.com
(Archive)
Updated: June 15, 2007
In late March, over cocktails at the annual NFL owners meeting in Phoenix, agent Tom Condon and Cowboys chief operating officer Stephen Jones spoke seriously about a new deal for Tony Romo and their desire to reach an agreement on a contract extension by May.
And then, for whatever reason, the good intentions shared during that casual get-together at the lobby bar of the Arizona Biltmore apparently evaporated like water in the desert that surrounds the resort oasis. March bled into April, and then the calendar flipped to the targeted month of May and now has turned to June.
With no deal.
And no movement toward an accord. The two sides didn't so much as exchange commas, let alone ponderous contract proposals.
Why so? Because neither side picked up the telephone, each assuming the other would make the opening gambit, and so negotiations toward an extension lay fallow for more than two months. Or until Condon, ESPN.com has confirmed, called Jones this week to remind him of their March dialogue and to revisit the subject.
Although it's going to take some time and considerable effort before Romo lands the extension that he spoke of wanting this week, expect things to get moving. Reports that an extension might be near were premature. But then again, that isn't to suggest it can't be accomplished by the beginning of training camp, although such a timetable might be ambitious.
It's clear Romo would prefer to solidify his future. And the Cowboys, who have no viable alternatives, appear willing to cast their lot with the four-year veteran. He is the quarterback the Cowboys groomed for the future. But the future is now, and it's time to pay the guy who will probably be the Dallas starter for the next several years.
"I'd definitely like [an extension] before the season begins, but you never know how things will go," Romo told the Dallas Morning News this week. "I know the Jones family. They knew me. We'll come to a conclusion."
And so, it seems, the Cowboys' brass has arrived at numbers-crunching time. And the conclusion probably is the team has to get an extension completed.
What choice, frankly, does owner Jerry Jones really have?
Beauty is always in the eye of the beholder at quarterback. And while Romo seems to spend more than his share of time in the offseason beholding a lot of beauties at just about every Miss Something pageant imaginable, there isn't a whole lot else to look at when one considers the Dallas quarterback depth chart.
Put a grotesque Halloween mask on Romo and he's better-looking than anything else available to the Jones family, new coach Wade Phillips and the overhauled offensive staff.
The only other experienced quarterback on the roster is 15-year veteran Brad Johnson, who is no longer a starting-caliber player. Dallas passed on Brady Quinn in the first round of this year's draft, choosing to deal its top selection to Cleveland and allow the Browns to snatch the former Notre Dame star.
For the Cowboys to grab one of the top quarterback prospects in next spring's draft -- like Louisville's Brian Brohm, Michigan's Chad Henne, Kentucky's Andre Woodson or Hawaii's Colt Brennan -- would mean two things. Dallas would have to have suffered through a miserable 2007 season, and Jones would be forced to lay out huge money for an unproven player at the game's most unpredictable position.
The Dallas owner would have a hard time reconciling any of those elements.
So the question for the Cowboys isn't whether to sign Romo to an extension, but rather, for how much? And that is the primary challenge to hammering out an accord that meets the needs of both sides.
Romo owns just 10 regular-season starts and has launched only 337 pass attempts. Although his record as a starter is an estimable 6-4, Romo's performance in his final five starts wasn't nearly as good as the numbers he amassed in the first five.
He was 4-1 in his opening five-week stretch as a starter, completing 71.2 percent of his passes, recording a 115.6 quarterback rating, and throwing 10 touchdown passes as opposed to only two interceptions. But over the second half of his 10-game stretch as a starter, Romo's passer rating plummeted nearly 40 points, to 77.4, for an overall 95.1. He had six touchdown passes and eight interceptions and the Cowboys won just two of those five starts.
In the Cowboys' bitter wild-card round loss at Seattle, it was Romo's ham-handedness on a placement kick that everyone recalls and cringes over. But his performance as a thrower was pretty bad, too. He completed 17 of 29 passes for 189 yards, one touchdown and no interceptions. Not bad for a kid making the initial postseason start of his career. But notable is that Romo had just one offensive series all night in which he completed more than two consecutive passes. And he didn't exactly light it up against a Seattle pass defense that was beat up and struggling.
The late-season slippage might have been like a pitcher struggling in his second time through the lineup, since teams that faced Romo later in the season had a more extensive body of work to scrutinize. More than likely, the disparate numbers were just a function of a young quarterback experiencing the roller coaster ride of being a first-time starter. But that is part of the formula Jerry Jones must account for when he gets around to forwarding Condon an extension proposal.
And make no mistake, it is probably more prudent for the Cowboys to secure Romo as their long-term starter than to allow him to go into the 2007 season, and into the final year of his current deal, without the extension. Why so?
Because if Romo gets to September minus an extension, and then is just four healthy months removed from being eligible for unrestricted free agency, the inclination to not sign an add-on in Dallas might be too tempting.
Under such a scenario, Romo would become that rarest of NFL commodities: a young, starting-caliber quarterback on the market. Dallas could retain his rights by designating Romo a franchise player, but that would cost $12 million-plus on a one-year deal. Romo would be, if the unthinkable occurred and he made it to free agency next spring, just 28 years old in April 2008.
Rest assured, someone, either the Cowboys or another suitor, would pay him.
Which is why the Cowboys figure to pay Romo before he ever catches so much as the scent of freedom. It's a risky endeavor, pursuing a pricey extension with a player, particularly one who still has much left to prove. But it might be even riskier for the Cowboys to not complete an extension.
The contract that everyone will point to as a starting point likely will be the six-year, $48 million deal the Houston Texans signed three-year veteran Matt Schaub to after acquiring him from Atlanta in a trade this spring. For all the hullabaloo that has surrounded him, Schaub has two regular-season starts, or eight fewer than Romo.
Dallas officials, who for years have worked hard to avoid investing too much salary cap room at quarterback, probably blanch at the mere mention of Schaub's contract. Whether or not the Texans' deal with Schaub is ill-advised or establishes the market for Romo, well, that's a matter the negotiators from both sides will be haggling over for a while.
Still, at the end of the day, expect a mutually favorable resolution to the Romo riddle.
The past two months, during which neither Condon nor Stephen Jones followed up on their conversation in Phoenix, were uneventful. The next couple of months figure to be a lot more meaningful to Romo's long-term future and financial security.
ESPN.com
(Archive)
Updated: June 15, 2007
In late March, over cocktails at the annual NFL owners meeting in Phoenix, agent Tom Condon and Cowboys chief operating officer Stephen Jones spoke seriously about a new deal for Tony Romo and their desire to reach an agreement on a contract extension by May.
And then, for whatever reason, the good intentions shared during that casual get-together at the lobby bar of the Arizona Biltmore apparently evaporated like water in the desert that surrounds the resort oasis. March bled into April, and then the calendar flipped to the targeted month of May and now has turned to June.
With no deal.
And no movement toward an accord. The two sides didn't so much as exchange commas, let alone ponderous contract proposals.
Why so? Because neither side picked up the telephone, each assuming the other would make the opening gambit, and so negotiations toward an extension lay fallow for more than two months. Or until Condon, ESPN.com has confirmed, called Jones this week to remind him of their March dialogue and to revisit the subject.
Although it's going to take some time and considerable effort before Romo lands the extension that he spoke of wanting this week, expect things to get moving. Reports that an extension might be near were premature. But then again, that isn't to suggest it can't be accomplished by the beginning of training camp, although such a timetable might be ambitious.
It's clear Romo would prefer to solidify his future. And the Cowboys, who have no viable alternatives, appear willing to cast their lot with the four-year veteran. He is the quarterback the Cowboys groomed for the future. But the future is now, and it's time to pay the guy who will probably be the Dallas starter for the next several years.
"I'd definitely like [an extension] before the season begins, but you never know how things will go," Romo told the Dallas Morning News this week. "I know the Jones family. They knew me. We'll come to a conclusion."
And so, it seems, the Cowboys' brass has arrived at numbers-crunching time. And the conclusion probably is the team has to get an extension completed.
What choice, frankly, does owner Jerry Jones really have?
Beauty is always in the eye of the beholder at quarterback. And while Romo seems to spend more than his share of time in the offseason beholding a lot of beauties at just about every Miss Something pageant imaginable, there isn't a whole lot else to look at when one considers the Dallas quarterback depth chart.
Put a grotesque Halloween mask on Romo and he's better-looking than anything else available to the Jones family, new coach Wade Phillips and the overhauled offensive staff.
The only other experienced quarterback on the roster is 15-year veteran Brad Johnson, who is no longer a starting-caliber player. Dallas passed on Brady Quinn in the first round of this year's draft, choosing to deal its top selection to Cleveland and allow the Browns to snatch the former Notre Dame star.
For the Cowboys to grab one of the top quarterback prospects in next spring's draft -- like Louisville's Brian Brohm, Michigan's Chad Henne, Kentucky's Andre Woodson or Hawaii's Colt Brennan -- would mean two things. Dallas would have to have suffered through a miserable 2007 season, and Jones would be forced to lay out huge money for an unproven player at the game's most unpredictable position.
The Dallas owner would have a hard time reconciling any of those elements.
So the question for the Cowboys isn't whether to sign Romo to an extension, but rather, for how much? And that is the primary challenge to hammering out an accord that meets the needs of both sides.
Romo owns just 10 regular-season starts and has launched only 337 pass attempts. Although his record as a starter is an estimable 6-4, Romo's performance in his final five starts wasn't nearly as good as the numbers he amassed in the first five.
He was 4-1 in his opening five-week stretch as a starter, completing 71.2 percent of his passes, recording a 115.6 quarterback rating, and throwing 10 touchdown passes as opposed to only two interceptions. But over the second half of his 10-game stretch as a starter, Romo's passer rating plummeted nearly 40 points, to 77.4, for an overall 95.1. He had six touchdown passes and eight interceptions and the Cowboys won just two of those five starts.
In the Cowboys' bitter wild-card round loss at Seattle, it was Romo's ham-handedness on a placement kick that everyone recalls and cringes over. But his performance as a thrower was pretty bad, too. He completed 17 of 29 passes for 189 yards, one touchdown and no interceptions. Not bad for a kid making the initial postseason start of his career. But notable is that Romo had just one offensive series all night in which he completed more than two consecutive passes. And he didn't exactly light it up against a Seattle pass defense that was beat up and struggling.
The late-season slippage might have been like a pitcher struggling in his second time through the lineup, since teams that faced Romo later in the season had a more extensive body of work to scrutinize. More than likely, the disparate numbers were just a function of a young quarterback experiencing the roller coaster ride of being a first-time starter. But that is part of the formula Jerry Jones must account for when he gets around to forwarding Condon an extension proposal.
And make no mistake, it is probably more prudent for the Cowboys to secure Romo as their long-term starter than to allow him to go into the 2007 season, and into the final year of his current deal, without the extension. Why so?
Because if Romo gets to September minus an extension, and then is just four healthy months removed from being eligible for unrestricted free agency, the inclination to not sign an add-on in Dallas might be too tempting.
Under such a scenario, Romo would become that rarest of NFL commodities: a young, starting-caliber quarterback on the market. Dallas could retain his rights by designating Romo a franchise player, but that would cost $12 million-plus on a one-year deal. Romo would be, if the unthinkable occurred and he made it to free agency next spring, just 28 years old in April 2008.
Rest assured, someone, either the Cowboys or another suitor, would pay him.
Which is why the Cowboys figure to pay Romo before he ever catches so much as the scent of freedom. It's a risky endeavor, pursuing a pricey extension with a player, particularly one who still has much left to prove. But it might be even riskier for the Cowboys to not complete an extension.
The contract that everyone will point to as a starting point likely will be the six-year, $48 million deal the Houston Texans signed three-year veteran Matt Schaub to after acquiring him from Atlanta in a trade this spring. For all the hullabaloo that has surrounded him, Schaub has two regular-season starts, or eight fewer than Romo.
Dallas officials, who for years have worked hard to avoid investing too much salary cap room at quarterback, probably blanch at the mere mention of Schaub's contract. Whether or not the Texans' deal with Schaub is ill-advised or establishes the market for Romo, well, that's a matter the negotiators from both sides will be haggling over for a while.
Still, at the end of the day, expect a mutually favorable resolution to the Romo riddle.
The past two months, during which neither Condon nor Stephen Jones followed up on their conversation in Phoenix, were uneventful. The next couple of months figure to be a lot more meaningful to Romo's long-term future and financial security.
posted by The Gryphon at 10:14 PM
<< Home