Romo replaces Cowboys' anxiety with air of confidence
A liberal dose
September 25, 2007
Bill Parcells would never admit it, but there was something about Tony Romo that scared him to death.
Sure, Parcells uncovered the piece of coal that would become the 'Hope' diamond now admired by every Cowboys fan around the globe, and for that we will always be grateful.
But Parcells, ever the conservative, play-it-close-to-the-vest, defense-first, old-schooler desperately feared Romo's gunslinger instincts and mentality.
The very thing that makes Romo special, his riverboat gambler approach to the game, is what Parcells tried to coach out of him.
It was his natural instinct. In the NFL that Parcells grew up in and conquered there were two rules: 1. Don't beat yourself (i.e., never trust a young quarterback); 2. When in doubt, see Rule 1.
On most teams, that's still true. But when you have a special talent, a quarterback with the ability to make plays with his head, with his arm and with his feet, you say a prayer of thanks and use him.
Thank heavens, Mama Garrett didn't raise any dummies.
Maybe I'm hallucinating, along with the rest of Cowboys Nation on a glorious 3-0 Monday morning, but it just may be that new offensive coordinator Jason Garrett is becoming to Romo what Norv Turner once was to Troy Aikman.
Mentor. Facilitator. Big brother. And the man who has devised an offense that emphasizes what Romo does best by giving him the latitude to improvise.
Rather than running from that part of Romo that Parcells seemed to fear, Garrett has embraced the wild child in his quarterback. He has turned that part of the Cowboys quarterback loose, for better or worse, and not many in America today would care to argue that it hasn't been for the better.
There's no better illustration of Garrett's confidence in his young quarterback than in the third quarter of Sunday night's eye-popping 34-10 destruction of the defending NFC champion Chicago Bears in their own back yard.
Tied 3-3 starting the second half, the defensive-minded Bears had the Cowboys exactly where they wanted them, ready to turn the game into one of those ugly Chicago grind-it-out, slug-it-out, Monsters-of-the-Midway, deep-dish specials.
Garrett and Romo were having none of it. Instead of allowing the Bears to pull them into that morass, Garrett simply quit beating his head against Soldier Field's storied brick walls and abandoned the run. Essentially, what he told Romo was to go out and win the game for the Cowboys.
So Romo, wearing that aw-shucks grin, did.
After swapping touchdowns to tie it at 10-10, penalties pushed the Cowboys back inside the 10, where Romo faced a critical third-and-11 with just six minutes left in the third quarter. There's no question that the conservative Parcells would have told Romo to stick the ball in Marion Barber's belly on one of those everybody-knows-it's-coming delayed draws and then punted to the ever-dangerous Devin Hester.
If there was ever a notice sent that this isn't Parcells' team anymore, it came when Romo, using his feet to buy some time, instead hit Terrell Owens for 35 yards, the key play in what would be a 91-yard touchdown drive that gave the Cowboys the lead for good.
A national sports radio talk show host was arguing Monday that the Packers are the best team in the NFL because Brett Favre is a proven quarterback and Romo is not.
I'm not sure at what point Romo becomes a 'proven' quarterback -- maybe after he takes the Cowboys to the Super Bowl, or at least wins a playoff game or two -- but the very fact that his name is coming up in a debate about who's better, him or the rejuvenated Favre, tells you how far Romo has come in less than a year.
Sometimes the best way for a reporter to fully grasp what he's seeing on a regular basis is to read what others are saying about the team and the players he covers.
Certainly the Chicago press had a field day Monday comparing 'Wrecks' Grossman with Romo.
Wrote Dustin Beutin of the Chicago Sports Review: 'Romo worked all night at Soldier Field with the NFL's best defense in his face. He had one of the NFL's premier linebackers spying on him and on at least two occasions was knocked to the ground harder than a drunken cowhand in a saloon fight.... He had a running game that was stuck in the mud, unable to move the ball against the Bears' front seven, daring him to beat the Bears in the air.
'Despite all of that, he completed passes in the face of all this pressure. He danced around in the pocket.... Let's be honest about it, if we can bear the implications: Tony Romo put on a demonstration of how a premier quarterback should handle an elite defense.'
One Chicago newsman wrote that Romo 'looked like a more mobile Tom Brady.' Another said Romo looks 'like a young Brett Favre.'
Wrote Rick Morrissey of the Chicago Tribune, 'There are a lot of things Romo can do better than Grossman, but one stood out Sunday night. He can avoid a rush and make a play. By comparison, Grossman moves like a couch.'
Ouch.
According to numbers scoured from somewhere by The Ticket's Norm Hitzges (and I don't argue numbers with Norm), Peyton Manning is averaging 13 yards per completion. So is Jon Kitna. Brady is at 12.5 and Carson Palmer at 11.5. They would be the cream of the NFL except for this:
Romo is averaging a whopping 17 yards per completion.
Sure, as explosive as it's been, there are still a few nagging concerns with this offense. Can the Cowboys develop a wide receiver threat other than Owens? Can they run the ball well enough when it counts? Can they cure the seemingly incessant barrage of false-start and holding penalties from the offensive line?
At 3-0, though, and with an offense that's averaging almost 39 points per game, that almost borders on nitpicking. Better to step back and see the bigger picture.
Three games into the season, I'm absolutely convinced of one thing: No one, not even Parcells, has to run scared of this quarterback anymore.
No one, that is, but the opposition.
September 25, 2007
Bill Parcells would never admit it, but there was something about Tony Romo that scared him to death.
Sure, Parcells uncovered the piece of coal that would become the 'Hope' diamond now admired by every Cowboys fan around the globe, and for that we will always be grateful.
But Parcells, ever the conservative, play-it-close-to-the-vest, defense-first, old-schooler desperately feared Romo's gunslinger instincts and mentality.
The very thing that makes Romo special, his riverboat gambler approach to the game, is what Parcells tried to coach out of him.
It was his natural instinct. In the NFL that Parcells grew up in and conquered there were two rules: 1. Don't beat yourself (i.e., never trust a young quarterback); 2. When in doubt, see Rule 1.
On most teams, that's still true. But when you have a special talent, a quarterback with the ability to make plays with his head, with his arm and with his feet, you say a prayer of thanks and use him.
Thank heavens, Mama Garrett didn't raise any dummies.
Maybe I'm hallucinating, along with the rest of Cowboys Nation on a glorious 3-0 Monday morning, but it just may be that new offensive coordinator Jason Garrett is becoming to Romo what Norv Turner once was to Troy Aikman.
Mentor. Facilitator. Big brother. And the man who has devised an offense that emphasizes what Romo does best by giving him the latitude to improvise.
Rather than running from that part of Romo that Parcells seemed to fear, Garrett has embraced the wild child in his quarterback. He has turned that part of the Cowboys quarterback loose, for better or worse, and not many in America today would care to argue that it hasn't been for the better.
There's no better illustration of Garrett's confidence in his young quarterback than in the third quarter of Sunday night's eye-popping 34-10 destruction of the defending NFC champion Chicago Bears in their own back yard.
Tied 3-3 starting the second half, the defensive-minded Bears had the Cowboys exactly where they wanted them, ready to turn the game into one of those ugly Chicago grind-it-out, slug-it-out, Monsters-of-the-Midway, deep-dish specials.
Garrett and Romo were having none of it. Instead of allowing the Bears to pull them into that morass, Garrett simply quit beating his head against Soldier Field's storied brick walls and abandoned the run. Essentially, what he told Romo was to go out and win the game for the Cowboys.
So Romo, wearing that aw-shucks grin, did.
After swapping touchdowns to tie it at 10-10, penalties pushed the Cowboys back inside the 10, where Romo faced a critical third-and-11 with just six minutes left in the third quarter. There's no question that the conservative Parcells would have told Romo to stick the ball in Marion Barber's belly on one of those everybody-knows-it's-coming delayed draws and then punted to the ever-dangerous Devin Hester.
If there was ever a notice sent that this isn't Parcells' team anymore, it came when Romo, using his feet to buy some time, instead hit Terrell Owens for 35 yards, the key play in what would be a 91-yard touchdown drive that gave the Cowboys the lead for good.
A national sports radio talk show host was arguing Monday that the Packers are the best team in the NFL because Brett Favre is a proven quarterback and Romo is not.
I'm not sure at what point Romo becomes a 'proven' quarterback -- maybe after he takes the Cowboys to the Super Bowl, or at least wins a playoff game or two -- but the very fact that his name is coming up in a debate about who's better, him or the rejuvenated Favre, tells you how far Romo has come in less than a year.
Sometimes the best way for a reporter to fully grasp what he's seeing on a regular basis is to read what others are saying about the team and the players he covers.
Certainly the Chicago press had a field day Monday comparing 'Wrecks' Grossman with Romo.
Wrote Dustin Beutin of the Chicago Sports Review: 'Romo worked all night at Soldier Field with the NFL's best defense in his face. He had one of the NFL's premier linebackers spying on him and on at least two occasions was knocked to the ground harder than a drunken cowhand in a saloon fight.... He had a running game that was stuck in the mud, unable to move the ball against the Bears' front seven, daring him to beat the Bears in the air.
'Despite all of that, he completed passes in the face of all this pressure. He danced around in the pocket.... Let's be honest about it, if we can bear the implications: Tony Romo put on a demonstration of how a premier quarterback should handle an elite defense.'
One Chicago newsman wrote that Romo 'looked like a more mobile Tom Brady.' Another said Romo looks 'like a young Brett Favre.'
Wrote Rick Morrissey of the Chicago Tribune, 'There are a lot of things Romo can do better than Grossman, but one stood out Sunday night. He can avoid a rush and make a play. By comparison, Grossman moves like a couch.'
Ouch.
According to numbers scoured from somewhere by The Ticket's Norm Hitzges (and I don't argue numbers with Norm), Peyton Manning is averaging 13 yards per completion. So is Jon Kitna. Brady is at 12.5 and Carson Palmer at 11.5. They would be the cream of the NFL except for this:
Romo is averaging a whopping 17 yards per completion.
Sure, as explosive as it's been, there are still a few nagging concerns with this offense. Can the Cowboys develop a wide receiver threat other than Owens? Can they run the ball well enough when it counts? Can they cure the seemingly incessant barrage of false-start and holding penalties from the offensive line?
At 3-0, though, and with an offense that's averaging almost 39 points per game, that almost borders on nitpicking. Better to step back and see the bigger picture.
Three games into the season, I'm absolutely convinced of one thing: No one, not even Parcells, has to run scared of this quarterback anymore.
No one, that is, but the opposition.
posted by The Gryphon at 7:37 AM
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