The Cowboys suffered another painfully close loss to the Giants on Sunday and the biggest reason why they were on the wrong side of the 29-24 final was six turnovers.
Quarterback Tony Romo threw four interceptions to help create that garish total which did plenty to mitigate the work he did while leading the Cowboys back after they went down 23-0 after little more than a quarter. Romo wound up throwing for 437 yards in that comeback, but he has now thrown more interceptions in seven games this year than he threw all of last season and is on pace for the lowest passer rating of his career.
None of that, nor the team’s 3-4 record, has done anything to shake Cowboys executive vice president Stephen Jones’ confidence in the quarterback. He told Ian Rapaport of NFL.com that Romo is “not the problem” with the team and that he believes Romo will “thrive” over the rest of the season.
“We have a lot of confidence in Tony,” Jones said. “That game is a perfect example. There’s a lot of quarterbacks that would’ve had a hard time rallying from that type of adversity. Gotta give him a lot of credit. I think he’s going to get better. There’s a lot of quarterbacks that it doesn’t happen right away for them in terms of winning championships and that type of thing. You don’t have to look any further than the Hall of Famers, (John) Elway and (Brett) Favre. The (championships) came late in their careers. They had some of the same issues that Tony’s had. They had some really great games and then they had some tough ones in terms of turning it over and that type of thing. So, we got a lot of confidence in Tony. Tony has a lot of confidence in himself. And he’s going to be fine.”
This isn’t the first time we’ve heard some variation on this line of reasoning, but it just isn’t true. Favre won the Super Bowl when he was 27 in his sixth year as a starter for the Packers. Elway didn’t win a title until later, but he won three AFC Championships before he was 30 and went to the Super Bowl in his fourth season. Romo is 32 and in his seventh year as a starting quarterback.
Romo might not be the biggest problem with the Cowboys, but he also isn’t some babe in the woods feeling his way around the NFL. He’s a fully-formed quarterback at this point in time and we’ve all seen enough of him to know that moments of brilliant play mixed with crushing mistakes is pretty much his mode of operation. The Cowboys are obviously fine with that mix, but the idea that Romo’s suddenly about to get better is a hard one to keep selling.
