In 2007, the Cowboys were 13-3, rolling over virtually all competitors. They stumbled over their dicks into the postseason and lost to the eventual champion New York Giants. They were the shape of the Cowboys to come. The people were excited. The air was abuzz at what could happen. The Boys rolled over everyone not named the Patriots. Sure, they fucked up against the Eagles and Giants at the end of the year, but they can't win them all, right?
No. Something happened. They could have won them all (if they didn't play that year's Patriots). Something evil happened. I personally blamed Jessica Simpson. But it was worse than that. Romo started reading what people thought about him. It wasn't like that before. Before, Romo played by the seat of his pants. He was the wild card. He turned twenty yard losses into thirty yard gains. He threw six interceptions in one game and still pulled out a win. It was simply magical.
Basically, there was a paradigm shift. The Romo that made shit happen became just another cog in a machine. Less a player and more a statistic. No longer was he a winner that invented ways to win, he was suddenly something quantifiable. People, including himself, began to look at statistics and trends. Graphs. Charts. Shit like that.
He used to be a goddamn football player. He used to win football games. Now he's just a statistic, just a fantasy football player. The rest of the team suffers for it.
The shape of the Cowboys to come never came.
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At think at some point Wade Jason et. al. have to come under fire. It seems that Wade is like his old man where he has this grandfatherly feel about him. It seems like the players like him well enough but nobody listens to him when it becomes nut cutting time. Garret seems to have fallen in the same trap Romo did.
ReplyDeleteFinally, nothing good has ever come from being on Hard Knocks.
He's fucking average. HE'S JUST AVERAGE. He isn't special. He really never was.
ReplyDeleteWhen you go from obscure to known in conjunction with success in a team sport, people exaggerate. When you're quarterback of the Cowboys, you literally have to be Quincy "How High" Carter for people to not give a shit about you. They could market a dying Nazi at 3rd string nosetackle without blushing. Throw in gratuitous shots of Jessica Simpson in the pressbox, and it just got carried away.
Throwing six interceptions in a win is an aberration, not some red flag of grandeur.
I think if you go back and watch some of those games from the 2007 season, you'd think differently.
ReplyDeleteMy point was basically that back then, he made plays with his feet, and moved around the field comfortably. Now he's shackled to the pocket, where he IS average.
He needs to get back to what made Troy Aikman refer to him as "The Legend of Tony Romo" which was an ability to manufacture yards out of nothing.