On the rare occasions when we’ve got a situation pegged, we tend to cling to it like a blanky.
And as more evidence supporting our assessment emerges, we tend to focus on it.
Case in point -- Cowboys quarterback Tony Romo claims he has changed, but the numbers show he hasn’t. Sure, Ed Werder of ESPN points out that the new Romo isn’t indifferent when he screws up.
But the new Romo continues to screw up.
During Sunday night’s christening of the North Texas Football Cathedral, Romo completed fewer than half of his passes (13 of 29), and he threw three interceptions, looking every bit as reckless as he usually does when the season is on the line.
Our take?
Romo simply doesn’t have what it takes mentally to become a high-end franchise quarterback. Undrafted in 2003 from Eastern Illinois, Romo already has achieved more in the NFL than he ever could have imagined. He’s the starting quarterback of the Dallas Cowboys, and he scored a long-term contract two years ago that will pay him more money than he otherwise ever could have made without winning Powerball.
All for an Eastern Illinois slappy who under the expectations for the unfolding of his life would have been coaching high school football by now.
So he’s content. And being content isn’t what leads to Super Bowls. As we’ve seen, being content doesn’t even lead to playoff wins.
More recently, it doesn’t even lead to playoffs.
Meanwhile, the man whom the Cowboys cleared out so that Romo could become the leader he never has been has chimed in, “retweeting” a message sent to him by one of his nearly 200,000 followers: “Dallas just found out they had a T.R. problem not a T.O. problem!”
If T.R. doesn’t turn it around soon, the Cowboys won’t have a T.R. problem come 2010. They’ll have a new coach, who might want his own guy to be throwing the passes -- and who might decide to draft Colt McCoy or Sam Bradford or someone else with the kind of pedigree who won’t be satisfied simply to play on Sundays, but who will accept nothing other than winning on Sundays.