The man who once had Tony Romo’s hands in a sensitive area on a regular basis now has to worry about Romo getting inside his head.
Cowboys center Travis Frederick recently expressed some concern about Romo sharing with the world what he knows about how Frederick plays.
“I’m not sure I want to hear the truth of what Tony has to say about me,” Frederick said with a laugh on 105.3 The Fan, via the Dallas Morning News. “Tony and I have been very close at certain times so I’m curious what sort of inside tidbits he has to share about me. I realize when you’re on this side of it, when you’re talking into the mic, it’s easy to kind of share some of those things.”
Frederick may not have to worry all that much, based on something Romo said during his introductory conference call with CBS.
“My feelings are that I’m always going to feel the need to want to talk up the Cowboys,” Romo said. “It’s like those are your friends. Those are the people you sweat, you bled with. These are the people that you’re close with for a long time. So for a while, there is no question I want them to succeed.”
That attitude, frankly, will make it harder for Romo to succeed in his new job. He’ll need to be objective in order to be credible, and if he refrains from directing fair criticism at the Cowboys when fair criticism is required, that will open the door for fair criticism to be directed at him.
By telegraphing his intent to not be objective when it comes to the Cowboys, the Romo critics will enter the season armed with fodder for flogging his performances. Though he likely won’t be calling many Cowboys games since CBS has the AFC package (road games at Oakland and Denver are the primary choices for 4:25 p.m. ET games on Sundays), Romo will be working this year what could be one of the biggest regular-season games of the year: The late-afternoon Thanksgiving game at Dallas, with likely opponent being the Giants, Eagles, Chiefs, Seahawks, or Packers. (The Rams, Chargers, and Washington are the other choices.)
So if he skews too far (or at all) toward the Cowboys during that game, he’ll hear about it. Loudly.