Dallas Cowboys: Is Quarterback Tony Romo Super Bowl Worthy? No Doubt.

With Super Bowl XLV just days away, the questions continue surrounding whether or not Dallas Cowboys quarterback Tony Romo is a legit Super Bowl field general.

Depending on who you are and how much you really know about the game of football, the answers seem to vary significantly.

If you’re a simple highlight watcher who is getting pretty close to plastered by the start of the fourth quarter, I’m going to assume that you might not like Romo too much. Yes, the losses that ended three of the past four seasons were pretty ugly, if not downright unfortunate.

Too many beers will cement that blurry and confusing memory of Romo trying to pick up that botched field goal attempt in Seattle.

My personal favorite is the interception to clinch the playoff win for the New York Giants following his second year starting. It kind of left me feeling as though a rug had just been yanked from underneath me.

On the other hand, if you follow this game and understand all of its moving parts on a play-by-play basis, then you couldn’t possibly argue against Romo’s Super Bowl potential.

He’s a multi-Pro Bowl player who has already racked up some incredible stats that you may already be aware of. His yards per attempt average already ranks near the top in league history.

Granted, attempts are one thing and completions are another but Romo’s career passing yardage already has elite written all over it.   

Just a quick comparison between Romo and Dallas’s other two Hall of Fame quarterbacks shows a great deal. And yes, I realize that we’re also talking about different eras of pro football, and that that has to considered. Romo is rapidly chasing everything put up by both Roger Staubach and Troy Aikman.

You might expect this to be the case where Staubach is concerned, given the era he played most of his career in and the age at which he finally joined the Cowboys. It is also noted that Staubach only played two seasons that featured 16 regular season games.

But with Aikman, the gap is also shrinking and there are many reasons for this. I also get the fact that Aikman never played in a silly spread offense like the thing rookie head coach Jason Garrett likes to trot out with.

NFL all-time leading rusher Emmitt Smith also trimmed much of Aikman’s statistical potential—a good thing, too. Otherwise we would still be awaiting the next Dallas quarterback to take the Cowboys to a Super Bowl win, or berth for that matter.

It is impossible to compare quarterbacks in literal terms, unless you’re just going by the stats and possibly championships. But just these elements are not the only things that apply. They just happen to be all that really matter to people.

Am I suggesting that Romo is better than Aikman or Staubach? Not exactly, but his numbers will likely shatter those of both of those former quarterbacks.

But for now, Romo’s issue is starting to look a little like that which surrounded Steve Young, quarterback of the San Francisco 49ers following the career of Joe Montana and his four Super Bowl rings.

Like Romo, Young was a mobile passer who could really get the ball to his many weapons. But over his first few season at the helm with the 49ers, he just could not get over the hump—that hump being the Dallas Cowboys, in fact.

But you likely remember 1994, Young’s fourth season as starter. In short, he got over the hump when nobody really thought he could. There is no need to throw in the fact that many Dallas injuries made that possible, is there?

Point is this: Young got there, and he did so because he knew his offense and had lots of weapons.

So does Romo.

For a solid decade it was believed that a guy named John Elway could not win the big one. After all, he had been to three Super Bowls in four seasons during the late 1980s but essentially was badly outclassed in all of them.

In fact, the more he reached, the worse it got for Elway and the Broncos. As a result, there were many, many people that believed that Elway, despite all the physical attributes you could ever ask for in a quarterback, simply was not capable of winning the Super Bowl.

They seemed to believe that there was some magical aura surrounding him that made him a Pro Bowl quarterback during the regular season but then just a chump in the Super Bowl. Was “The Drive” in Cleveland his lucky day?

Then, years after those Super Bowl busts of the 1980s came a guy named Terrell Davis, the running back Elway never had. Well, that made a lot of people feel pretty stupid. Elway then won back-to-back Super Bowls, retiring thereafter before becoming some kind of pathetic Brett Favre story.

What Elway needed was a running game.

Young needed a running game and a defense—and Dallas injuries. Had to toss that in, sorry!

What does Romo need to get over the hump? It’s certainly not a beautiful blonde under his arm. He completes that “pass” pretty well, too.

Romo needs a consistent running game. An experienced offensive play-caller wouldn’t hurt either, and the future on that end looks pretty bleak. Let’s also add much better pass protection.

Despite those above issues, Romo still has the resume he has.

But Romo has the numbers. He has the ability. He has the leadership that some allow the media to question.

History proves that championship quarterbacks do not emerge until a complete surrounding cast supports them. To ignore that fact and decide that a guy just can’t win the big one for reasons only in their gut is ridiculous.