The Cowboys considered placing quarterback Tony Romo on injured reserve with a broken bone in his back, which would give him the opportunity to return later in the year. They apparently have decided not to do that.
Owner Jerry Jones said on 105.3 The Fan in Dallas that there’s no other position sufficiently valuable to justify removing Romo from the roster, via David Helman of the team’s official website.
Via multiple reports from people who don’t work for the team, Jones compared the process of deciding whether to place Romo on IR to “circumcising a mosquito.”
Here’s the added benefit of keeping Romo on the active roster: Each and every week, the Cowboys can try to create the impression that Romo is ready to come back. At some point, there will be a real question as to whether Romo will be ready, and it will cause a team to prepare for seeing Romo. Maybe, at some point, a team won’t be sufficiently ready for Dak Prescott. Maybe, at some point, a team will be completely unprepared for Romo.
Already, coach Jason Garrett has declined to rule Romo out for Week One. That will continue, week in and week out, until Romo is listed as questionable and he doesn’t appear on the list of inactive players submitted 90 minutes before kickoffs and, from the Cowboys perspective, a team hopefully faces Romo when it didn’t expect to do so.
And then he’ll get injured again five plays later.