Tony Romo Injury: Updates on Cowboys Star's Back and Return

Updates from Sunday, Sept. 21

The Dallas Cowboys confirmed that Tony Romo is active for Sunday's matchup vs. St. Louis:

Updates from Friday, Sept. 19

FOX Sports Southwest's Mike Fisher has the latest on Romo's status:

Jon Machota of the Dallas Morning News has an update on Romo:

Machota provided full details from Jones:

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“There’s no substitute for the person telling you or reading his body,” Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones said Friday on 105.3 The Fan [KRLD-FM]. “He felt like we were better off, he was better off, I’ll assure you it was a ‘We’re better off type decision’ as a team for him to get that rest, get the mental in, but give him the rest. That’s why you’re seeing maybe not a scheduled time that he practices and when he doesn’t.

“He wants to do some extra work on his strength and conditioning. Anybody that’s had back injuries to that nature understand that. It’s not something that we should be concerned about.”

Could this possibly lead to Romo missing a game to rest his back?

“No I don’t see a scenario like that,” Jones said. “Certainly that’s why we have backup quarterbacks. But I don’t see that being a smart thing to do. A game is just too important to us.”

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Updates from Thursday, Sept. 18

Clarence Hill of The Star-Telegram reported on Tony Romo from Cowboys practice:

Original Text

Dallas Cowboys quarterback Tony Romo is dealing with a back injury heading into Week 3.

Mike Florio of ProFootballTalk reports on the injury: 

Romo commented briefly on the injury via Tim MacMahon of ESPN Dallas:

Despite sitting out Wednesday's practice, Romo remains confident the injury isn't too serious (via the Around the NFL Twitter account):

Romo has only missed one game over the past three years, but that came at the end of last season after undergoing back surgery. Returning from those types of injuries gets tougher as a player gets older, having endured all of that punishment.

Despite that, the polarizing quarterback was confident about his chances of getting back to full strength and play his best football to date. Todd Archer of ESPN.com passed along comments from him about what the future was going to hold:

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I think—and I've said it before—but I think over the course of the next four or five years, you'll see the best version of me that I've had throughout my career. That's for a lot of different reasons. But I really believe that, and I believe that will show as we go forward. So I'm excited about that. As my body continues to get healthier and healthier, it's going to be better.

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Exactly how much better Romo could reasonably get is an interesting debate. His career quarterback rating is above 95, and he's never had a season where it's been below 90, which suggests he's been very good to great throughout his career.

SportsCenter provided comments from Ron Jaworski, who rated the Cowboys quarterback as the 12th best in the NFL but also explained why his reputation doesn't match the numbers:

Yet, the argument that he doesn't come up big in clutch situations even has some flaws, as illustrated by Numbers Never Lie:

In reality, Romo is a crucial piece of the Cowboys offense. There are a lot of teams around the league that would have liked to receive that type of quarterback play in recent years. Dallas will probably learn that the hard way if he's forced to miss any extended period of time due to the injury.

It will be easier to get a read on how the ailment will impact the Cowboys once the team releases more information about it. Obviously, any type of long-term absence is going to put a serious damper on expectations this season.

For Romo, that would also represent a disappointing setback after coming into the season with such an optimistic outlook after recovering from his last injury.