- Messages
- 5,432
- Reaction score
- 0
Just watching, Tony Romo can see winner developing for Cowboys
Posted Monday, Dec. 06, 2010
Send us a news tip
Express your opinion in a letter to the editor
by Jennifer Floyd Engel
jenfloyd@star-telegram.com
INDIANAPOLIS — Dallas Cowboys quarterback Tony Romo cannot sleep and, as a result, cannot play. Romo is a side sleeper and it tells him nightly his injured shoulder is not ready to return to Sunday pitch-and-catch duty.
“Scrunched” is the very non-medical term Romo used and, as long as his shoulder does that when lying down, he is unavailable for football action. In all honesty, any sort of football duty for Romo again this season seems remote and highly dubious.
Why risk newly jacking up The Franchise’s shoulder simply because he wants to play? And while Romo hates watching, he says he loves what he’s seeing.
From his Cowboys teammates. And from interim coach Jason Garrett.
“Winning and losing, that matters,” Romo said. “And from that perspective, nobody can argue with Jason Garrett.”
Scoreboard says it all: 3 Ws, 1 L in the very brief JG era.
Include Sunday’s OT thriller, a 38-35 victory against The Fighting Peyton Mannings in that W column. And suddenly a team that was gutless and not to mention dead after starting 1-7 and a job interview that seemed un-aceable when JG took over for Wade (Phillips) four weeks ago, has turned into the comeback story of this NFL season.
Credit JG. And while we’re at it, go ahead and hire him.
Critics will say “of course Romo has JG’s back. They’re attached at the hip.” True. Romo is also the franchise player, his opinion carries a lot of weight. And he is seeing what the rest of us are, a team not only not quitting but a team finding ways to win.
So when exactly is the press conference?
Cowboys owner Jerry Jones deftly dodged any definitive statement on JG’s long-term future, despite my best efforts to get him to hire him right there in the giddy post-interview locker room.
His hesitancy is, in part, because the NFL takes the “Rooney Rule” very seriously. It is a well-intentioned rule, misapplied in situations like Dallas when an interim candidate has clearly won the job. Why force a promising minority coach to go through the motions with Jerry when another candidate so obviously has the job?
Not the best use of anybody’s time.
Because whatever else happens this season, JG deserves to be the Cowboys coach in 2011. He has been a miracle worker so far, as evident in Sunday’s game, in which a depleted Cowboys secondary found a way to stop Peyton twice in overtime before David Buehler nailed a 38-yard field goal for the win. The same “D” also turned two Peyton passes into Pick Sixes. And JG’s offense is downright scary right now.
That leads to Jerry’s second reason for not going definitive on JG, and this one actually makes sense.
“What I don’t want is to make it seem like ‘We got Jason, now everything is going to be all right,’ ” Jerry said.
He fairly pointed out that JG had a hand in the abysmal disappointment this Cowboys season, has been and will be, no matter how it ends. His play calling was not exactly lighting anybody’s’ pants on fire and had more than a few calling for his firing. To quickly address the conspiracy theorist suggesting JG, “duped play calling” to get coach Wade fired and himself hired, and these people are out there and e-mail daily, this is the most idiotic thing I’ve ever heard.
There’s no guaranteed JG would be promoted.
And the Cupcake did a pretty good job of getting himself fired. He did not need a lot of help.
And the play calling is not really that much different or better, the execution by the players has been.
That is because the players respond to JG because he actually acts like a real football coach. He clearly communicates his expectations, actually has expectations for them and consequences for players not meeting expectations.
This is not to say he is perfect or even close. He gets dropped into the grease by the fact that Tashard Choice only got major carries when Marion Barber got hurt. How can a Princeton grad not see that Choice is better? The guy has speed, talent and a clue — all of the things that Barber so clearly has lacked lately.
And I was ready to fire JG from the press box when he had Buehler kicking a field goal on third down in overtime. Every single kick with that kid is an adventure. Distance is not the problem, unless you’re talking the istance between the two goal posts is always a question on whether the ball will end up between them.
But somehow JG’s ’Boys found a way to win Sunday. Somehow JG has turned this team, which everybody can agree, looked DOA when Jerry finally pulled the trigger on coach Wade, into a fun team to watch and a winner. Love JG or distrust him, want him hired or fired, you have to admit Romo has a point.
What matters is W’s and L’s. And JG has them winning. Games like Sunday are the proof. Games like Sunday are his résumé.
Romo was just saying what everybody else has been watching, what should be the next coach of the Dallas Cowboys.
Hire JG, Jerry.
Read more: http://www.star-telegram.com/2010/12/06/2681602/just-watching-tony-romo-can-see.html#ixzz17KRgSomX
Posted Monday, Dec. 06, 2010
Send us a news tip
Express your opinion in a letter to the editor
by Jennifer Floyd Engel
jenfloyd@star-telegram.com
INDIANAPOLIS — Dallas Cowboys quarterback Tony Romo cannot sleep and, as a result, cannot play. Romo is a side sleeper and it tells him nightly his injured shoulder is not ready to return to Sunday pitch-and-catch duty.
“Scrunched” is the very non-medical term Romo used and, as long as his shoulder does that when lying down, he is unavailable for football action. In all honesty, any sort of football duty for Romo again this season seems remote and highly dubious.
Why risk newly jacking up The Franchise’s shoulder simply because he wants to play? And while Romo hates watching, he says he loves what he’s seeing.
From his Cowboys teammates. And from interim coach Jason Garrett.
“Winning and losing, that matters,” Romo said. “And from that perspective, nobody can argue with Jason Garrett.”
Scoreboard says it all: 3 Ws, 1 L in the very brief JG era.
Include Sunday’s OT thriller, a 38-35 victory against The Fighting Peyton Mannings in that W column. And suddenly a team that was gutless and not to mention dead after starting 1-7 and a job interview that seemed un-aceable when JG took over for Wade (Phillips) four weeks ago, has turned into the comeback story of this NFL season.
Credit JG. And while we’re at it, go ahead and hire him.
Critics will say “of course Romo has JG’s back. They’re attached at the hip.” True. Romo is also the franchise player, his opinion carries a lot of weight. And he is seeing what the rest of us are, a team not only not quitting but a team finding ways to win.
So when exactly is the press conference?
Cowboys owner Jerry Jones deftly dodged any definitive statement on JG’s long-term future, despite my best efforts to get him to hire him right there in the giddy post-interview locker room.
His hesitancy is, in part, because the NFL takes the “Rooney Rule” very seriously. It is a well-intentioned rule, misapplied in situations like Dallas when an interim candidate has clearly won the job. Why force a promising minority coach to go through the motions with Jerry when another candidate so obviously has the job?
Not the best use of anybody’s time.
Because whatever else happens this season, JG deserves to be the Cowboys coach in 2011. He has been a miracle worker so far, as evident in Sunday’s game, in which a depleted Cowboys secondary found a way to stop Peyton twice in overtime before David Buehler nailed a 38-yard field goal for the win. The same “D” also turned two Peyton passes into Pick Sixes. And JG’s offense is downright scary right now.
That leads to Jerry’s second reason for not going definitive on JG, and this one actually makes sense.
“What I don’t want is to make it seem like ‘We got Jason, now everything is going to be all right,’ ” Jerry said.
He fairly pointed out that JG had a hand in the abysmal disappointment this Cowboys season, has been and will be, no matter how it ends. His play calling was not exactly lighting anybody’s’ pants on fire and had more than a few calling for his firing. To quickly address the conspiracy theorist suggesting JG, “duped play calling” to get coach Wade fired and himself hired, and these people are out there and e-mail daily, this is the most idiotic thing I’ve ever heard.
There’s no guaranteed JG would be promoted.
And the Cupcake did a pretty good job of getting himself fired. He did not need a lot of help.
And the play calling is not really that much different or better, the execution by the players has been.
That is because the players respond to JG because he actually acts like a real football coach. He clearly communicates his expectations, actually has expectations for them and consequences for players not meeting expectations.
This is not to say he is perfect or even close. He gets dropped into the grease by the fact that Tashard Choice only got major carries when Marion Barber got hurt. How can a Princeton grad not see that Choice is better? The guy has speed, talent and a clue — all of the things that Barber so clearly has lacked lately.
And I was ready to fire JG from the press box when he had Buehler kicking a field goal on third down in overtime. Every single kick with that kid is an adventure. Distance is not the problem, unless you’re talking the istance between the two goal posts is always a question on whether the ball will end up between them.
But somehow JG’s ’Boys found a way to win Sunday. Somehow JG has turned this team, which everybody can agree, looked DOA when Jerry finally pulled the trigger on coach Wade, into a fun team to watch and a winner. Love JG or distrust him, want him hired or fired, you have to admit Romo has a point.
What matters is W’s and L’s. And JG has them winning. Games like Sunday are the proof. Games like Sunday are his résumé.
Romo was just saying what everybody else has been watching, what should be the next coach of the Dallas Cowboys.
Hire JG, Jerry.
Read more: http://www.star-telegram.com/2010/12/06/2681602/just-watching-tony-romo-can-see.html#ixzz17KRgSomX