The Gameface
By Michael Silver
Yahoo! Sports
Editor's note: This is a preview of Michael Silver's column titled "The Gameface," which will appear every Friday during the season.
SAN ANTONIO – Tony Romo sat in the back of the meeting room at the Ihilani Resort and Spa last February, still unsettled from his topsy-turvy trip to paradise. Having ascended from the depths of anonymity to the sudden star of America's Team – only to drop the ball at the worst possible time – Romo had finally shaken off one of the most colossal playoff blunders in NFL history and was trying to enjoy his maiden trip to the Pro Bowl.
The Saints' Sean Payton, who was coaching the NFC by virtue of his team's defeat in the conference championship game, stepped to the podium and addressed his star-studded group for the first time. "You're all great players," said Payton, Romo's onetime position coach with the Dallas Cowboys, "but this week I need some people to step up and contribute on special teams."
Payton paused for comic effect before adding, "Romo, you're holding."
Everyone in the room cracked up, including Romo, whose mishandled field-goal snap with just over a minute remaining in the Cowboys' wild-card-round playoff game at Seattle had doomed Big D to a 21-20 defeat. A month later, the cocksure kid with the quick release had learned to laugh at his ghastly gaffe, which earned him a lifetime membership – with a chair between Earnest Byner and Roger Craig – in the NFL's Untimely Fumble Club.
And now Romo is one of the league's more intriguing protagonists as the 2007 season approaches. Can he propel a talented Cowboys team to its first Super Bowl berth since they won their record-tying fifth 12 seasons ago? Is that what it'll take for him to get paid? Will Carrie Underwood write a song about him if he pulls it off?
And, the most compelling question of all: How will Romo react the next time adversity strikes?
Put another way: Will he always be Bobble Boy? Few people have ever accused me of owning psychic powers, certainly not anyone who read my classic columns predicting the Cardinals to win the NFC West in 2005 and 2006, but I'm here to tell you that Romo will Cowboy up and live it down.
Sometimes you just get a feeling about a player, and Romo comes off like one of those rare leaders who expertly straddles the line between intense drive and imperviousness to pressure. Throw in supreme self-confidence and some impressive physical skills (mobility, accuracy, timing) and Romo has a chance to be special.
Yet largely because of that infamous fumble, Romo, once an undrafted afterthought from Eastern Illinois, still thinks he has to prove he belongs.
"Eventually, you just learn to accept that you made a mistake," Romo said last week after a training camp practice at the Alamodome. "In the end, I think it can help me. I know I worked with a little bit of a chip on my shoulder this offseason, and it's still there."
I was there on that rainy night at Qwest Field when Romo's nightmarish moment played out, and the whole thing was surreal. Even after Romo, who'd driven the Cowboys into position to pull out the victory, did his Edward Scissorshands thing, he recovered quickly. He picked up the ball and began racing around left end toward the first-down marker and, a yard later, the end zone.
For a split second Romo seemed certain to make it – the fumble would've merely provided a deliciously dramatic twist to the fairy tale. But the Seahawks' Jordan Babineaux dove at Romo's heels and stopped him a couple of feet short, and suddenly it was all over: The Cowboys' season, Romo's status as the league's feel-good story and, it later turned out, Bill Parcells's decorated coaching career.
Almost immediately, I flashed back to the conversation I'd had with Romo a couple days earlier at the Cowboys' headquarters. It was the first time we'd ever spoken, and I was impressed by his understanding that what he was about to experience would dwarf everything that had happened up to that point.
Having been a revelation in the weeks after Parcells' decision to bench Drew Bledsoe in late October – culminating in a five-touchdown, 306-yard passing clinic in a victory over the Buccaneers on Thanksgiving – Romo had leveled off in the season's final months. Now, he realized, none of that meant anything.
"This is where the fun begins," he said. "As a quarterback, you get too much credit when you win and too much of the blame when you lose, especially now. But that's the position you choose.
"I talked to Deion Sanders the other day, and he said, 'You know this is all people are going to remember.' I'm not really the nervous type – it's more like I'm excited, because this is about the funnest thing there is. I mean, this is what people live for. One play can determine the fate of everyone in this organization."
Gulp.
So, when Romo's fate was revealed, the quarterback wasn't just awash in his own devastation.
In the locker room Cowboys owner Jerry Jones gave Romo a hug and spoke of the bright future that lay ahead. ("Snaps happen," Jones says now. "As a quarterback, he did his job." So far Jones hasn't felt compelled to offer Romo, whose two-year, $3.9 million contract expires after this season, a lucrative extension, but neither man seems stressed by that. "I just think they want to make sure," Romo says. "What good does it do for them to get it done now, except for the money they might save?")
After Romo dressed and showered in Seattle, his father, Ramiro, reminded Tony that "in sports, it's either going to be heaven or hell. The great thing is you'll get a chance for redemption." Later Romo read a text message from Payton telling him to be proud of all he had accomplished and insisting, "People are going to remember you for what you do after this, not for this."
Then Romo flew home, slept a couple hours and started obsessing about all the people he let down. "He's really a people-pleaser," Ramiro says of his son. "That's what was killing him."
Two-and-a-half weeks later, when Parcells announced he was stepping away, Romo felt especially guilty. "The worst part is that I'm a pretty nostalgic guy," Romo says. "I'd had a feeling Parcells might be close to the end, and I like to see great players and great coaches go out the way they're supposed to. I really feel like I let some parts of his legacy down."
To be fair, with the prickly, egocentric Parcells having been replaced by no-frills coaching veteran Wade Phillips, many of Romo's teammates feel like high-fiving him for having helped facilitate that change. Told of Romo's misgivings over his possible role in Parcells' departure, one veteran defensive player said of the quarterback, "He did us all a favor."
Though Romo got some attention over the offseason for non-football pursuits – attempting to qualify for golf's U.S. Open, which he'd done for the past several years, and accompanying Underwood to the Academy of Country Music Awards in Las Vegas – it would be a mistake to assume he's been basking in the glow of his newfound celebrity.
"I did three things this offseason, and they all lasted one day," Romo insists. "I'm the kind of guy who, if I'm sitting on the beach, I'm stressing out … and I want a football in my hands. If I've been away from it even for a couple of days, I get that pit in my stomach and start thinking, 'Someone's getting better than me. Someone's out learning something I don't know.' "
He says his romance with Underwood, she of the voice so golden it turned even Simon Cowell into a fawning fan, is grounded by a common thread: "You come from a smaller place and get thrown into the limelight, and to sustain your success you can't turn your back on what got you there in the first place."
In other words, he's not just attracting a famous hottie, he's peering into her soul, too.
It's enough to make a guy want to spontaneously break into song, which Romo says he does with alarming frequency in Underwood's presence. "I'm an incredible singer … not," he says. "But that doesn't stop me."
Even more dubious is Romo's song selection. It's one thing to butcher a benign tune, and quite another to do a warbling Steve Perry while reprising a Journey hit that, were his version to have been featured in the Sopranos finale, would have ended things conclusively for Tony and everyone else in that Jersey diner.
Says Romo, "I love 'Don't Stop Believing.' "
Of course he does.
And you'd best believe he won't.
Yahoo! Sports
Editor's note: This is a preview of Michael Silver's column titled "The Gameface," which will appear every Friday during the season.
SAN ANTONIO – Tony Romo sat in the back of the meeting room at the Ihilani Resort and Spa last February, still unsettled from his topsy-turvy trip to paradise. Having ascended from the depths of anonymity to the sudden star of America's Team – only to drop the ball at the worst possible time – Romo had finally shaken off one of the most colossal playoff blunders in NFL history and was trying to enjoy his maiden trip to the Pro Bowl.
The Saints' Sean Payton, who was coaching the NFC by virtue of his team's defeat in the conference championship game, stepped to the podium and addressed his star-studded group for the first time. "You're all great players," said Payton, Romo's onetime position coach with the Dallas Cowboys, "but this week I need some people to step up and contribute on special teams."
Payton paused for comic effect before adding, "Romo, you're holding."
Everyone in the room cracked up, including Romo, whose mishandled field-goal snap with just over a minute remaining in the Cowboys' wild-card-round playoff game at Seattle had doomed Big D to a 21-20 defeat. A month later, the cocksure kid with the quick release had learned to laugh at his ghastly gaffe, which earned him a lifetime membership – with a chair between Earnest Byner and Roger Craig – in the NFL's Untimely Fumble Club.
And now Romo is one of the league's more intriguing protagonists as the 2007 season approaches. Can he propel a talented Cowboys team to its first Super Bowl berth since they won their record-tying fifth 12 seasons ago? Is that what it'll take for him to get paid? Will Carrie Underwood write a song about him if he pulls it off?
And, the most compelling question of all: How will Romo react the next time adversity strikes?
Put another way: Will he always be Bobble Boy? Few people have ever accused me of owning psychic powers, certainly not anyone who read my classic columns predicting the Cardinals to win the NFC West in 2005 and 2006, but I'm here to tell you that Romo will Cowboy up and live it down.
Sometimes you just get a feeling about a player, and Romo comes off like one of those rare leaders who expertly straddles the line between intense drive and imperviousness to pressure. Throw in supreme self-confidence and some impressive physical skills (mobility, accuracy, timing) and Romo has a chance to be special.
Yet largely because of that infamous fumble, Romo, once an undrafted afterthought from Eastern Illinois, still thinks he has to prove he belongs.
"Eventually, you just learn to accept that you made a mistake," Romo said last week after a training camp practice at the Alamodome. "In the end, I think it can help me. I know I worked with a little bit of a chip on my shoulder this offseason, and it's still there."
I was there on that rainy night at Qwest Field when Romo's nightmarish moment played out, and the whole thing was surreal. Even after Romo, who'd driven the Cowboys into position to pull out the victory, did his Edward Scissorshands thing, he recovered quickly. He picked up the ball and began racing around left end toward the first-down marker and, a yard later, the end zone.
For a split second Romo seemed certain to make it – the fumble would've merely provided a deliciously dramatic twist to the fairy tale. But the Seahawks' Jordan Babineaux dove at Romo's heels and stopped him a couple of feet short, and suddenly it was all over: The Cowboys' season, Romo's status as the league's feel-good story and, it later turned out, Bill Parcells's decorated coaching career.
Almost immediately, I flashed back to the conversation I'd had with Romo a couple days earlier at the Cowboys' headquarters. It was the first time we'd ever spoken, and I was impressed by his understanding that what he was about to experience would dwarf everything that had happened up to that point.
Having been a revelation in the weeks after Parcells' decision to bench Drew Bledsoe in late October – culminating in a five-touchdown, 306-yard passing clinic in a victory over the Buccaneers on Thanksgiving – Romo had leveled off in the season's final months. Now, he realized, none of that meant anything.
"This is where the fun begins," he said. "As a quarterback, you get too much credit when you win and too much of the blame when you lose, especially now. But that's the position you choose.
"I talked to Deion Sanders the other day, and he said, 'You know this is all people are going to remember.' I'm not really the nervous type – it's more like I'm excited, because this is about the funnest thing there is. I mean, this is what people live for. One play can determine the fate of everyone in this organization."
Gulp.
So, when Romo's fate was revealed, the quarterback wasn't just awash in his own devastation.
In the locker room Cowboys owner Jerry Jones gave Romo a hug and spoke of the bright future that lay ahead. ("Snaps happen," Jones says now. "As a quarterback, he did his job." So far Jones hasn't felt compelled to offer Romo, whose two-year, $3.9 million contract expires after this season, a lucrative extension, but neither man seems stressed by that. "I just think they want to make sure," Romo says. "What good does it do for them to get it done now, except for the money they might save?")
After Romo dressed and showered in Seattle, his father, Ramiro, reminded Tony that "in sports, it's either going to be heaven or hell. The great thing is you'll get a chance for redemption." Later Romo read a text message from Payton telling him to be proud of all he had accomplished and insisting, "People are going to remember you for what you do after this, not for this."
Then Romo flew home, slept a couple hours and started obsessing about all the people he let down. "He's really a people-pleaser," Ramiro says of his son. "That's what was killing him."
Two-and-a-half weeks later, when Parcells announced he was stepping away, Romo felt especially guilty. "The worst part is that I'm a pretty nostalgic guy," Romo says. "I'd had a feeling Parcells might be close to the end, and I like to see great players and great coaches go out the way they're supposed to. I really feel like I let some parts of his legacy down."
To be fair, with the prickly, egocentric Parcells having been replaced by no-frills coaching veteran Wade Phillips, many of Romo's teammates feel like high-fiving him for having helped facilitate that change. Told of Romo's misgivings over his possible role in Parcells' departure, one veteran defensive player said of the quarterback, "He did us all a favor."
Though Romo got some attention over the offseason for non-football pursuits – attempting to qualify for golf's U.S. Open, which he'd done for the past several years, and accompanying Underwood to the Academy of Country Music Awards in Las Vegas – it would be a mistake to assume he's been basking in the glow of his newfound celebrity.
"I did three things this offseason, and they all lasted one day," Romo insists. "I'm the kind of guy who, if I'm sitting on the beach, I'm stressing out … and I want a football in my hands. If I've been away from it even for a couple of days, I get that pit in my stomach and start thinking, 'Someone's getting better than me. Someone's out learning something I don't know.' "
He says his romance with Underwood, she of the voice so golden it turned even Simon Cowell into a fawning fan, is grounded by a common thread: "You come from a smaller place and get thrown into the limelight, and to sustain your success you can't turn your back on what got you there in the first place."
In other words, he's not just attracting a famous hottie, he's peering into her soul, too.
It's enough to make a guy want to spontaneously break into song, which Romo says he does with alarming frequency in Underwood's presence. "I'm an incredible singer … not," he says. "But that doesn't stop me."
Even more dubious is Romo's song selection. It's one thing to butcher a benign tune, and quite another to do a warbling Steve Perry while reprising a Journey hit that, were his version to have been featured in the Sopranos finale, would have ended things conclusively for Tony and everyone else in that Jersey diner.
Says Romo, "I love 'Don't Stop Believing.' "
Of course he does.
And you'd best believe he won't.
posted by The Gryphon at 10:35 AM
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