News Flash: Not Everything Is Always Tony Romo's Fault

As some of you may know, I have always been a big supporter of Tony Romo and before you assume that I must be crazy for defending Tony Romo, please hear me out.

Since the Cowboys' dismal loss to the Eagles on Sunday, people have been accusing Tony Romo, a quarterback who hasn’t even been a starter for three full seasons, of being the biggest choker in NFL history.

Some people are now even saying that the Cowboys might have made a mistake in making Romo there franchise quarterback.

I’ll obviously admit that Tony Romo is definitely not the MVP candidate I thought he was in week 13, but he is still a quarterback that the Cowboys are lucky to have nonetheless.

The fans that are suddenly betraying him and throwing him under the bus need to wake up and realize just how important Tony Romo is to the Cowboys.

If you look back at the last four weeks in which the Cowboys imploded, much of it wasn’t Romo’s fault. The last four weeks of the season, the Cowboys played four out of the top five defenses in total yards per game.

Against the Steelers in week 14, the number one defense in the NFL, Romo posted the third highest total passing yards thrown against the Steelers all season with 210 yards.

In fact, the Steelers defense has been so good since week 11 that the Cowboys 13 points scored was the second highest total scored on them in the last seven weeks.

Although Romo had some turnovers in the game, he did put the Cowboys in a position to win. However, at the end of the game he unfortunately threw the game losing interception while attempting to get tight end Jason Witten the ball.

After the play, Jason Witten immediately pointed at his chest inferring that the mis-communication was his fault. In the Cowboys post-game conference, Jason Witten made it clear that he was taking the blame for Romo’s costly interception.

Against the Giants in week 15, the number five defense in the NFL, Romo played great throwing for 244 yards and two touchdowns in the Cowboys 20-8 victory against the Giants.

Against the Ravens in week 16, the number two defense in the league, Romo posted the fourth highest total passing yards thrown on the Ravens all season and the most the Ravens had allowed in their last six games of the season.

This was even more remarkable considering this Ravens were even better defensively in the last six weeks of the season giving up 10 points or less to every team they faced except the 24 points scored on them by the Cowboys.

Romo threw for two touchdowns in the game, with one of them being a tremendous throw that was somehow caught by Terrell Owens. Although he did throw two interceptions, this wasn’t too surprising since the Ravens did lead the league with 26 interceptions this season.

The Cowboys would have had an opportunity to beat the Ravens if it wasn’t for the missed tackles by the Cowboys’ defense that led to two 70 yard plus runs by the Baltimore Ravens which essentially sealed their victory in the fourth quarter.

Against the Eagles in week 17, there is no doubt that the Cowboys offense was out of sync and Romo played bad. He had one very costly interception in the first half, but those two second half fumbles have been getting too much attention.

Romo shouldn’t have held on to the ball for as long as he did, but with his team down 24-3 and 31-3 you can’t really blame the man for trying to make a play.

You can accuse him of choking once again, but the truth is the Cowboys line hasn’t been playing well, and facing an Eagles defense which was number two in the NFL in sacks this year was a bad match-up for Romo and the Cowboys.

Romo obviously had too many turnovers towards the end of the season, but I believe that most quarterbacks in his situation wouldn’t have played very well against the elite defenses he played against with the protection his underachieving offensive line was giving him.

Earlier this year, the Cowboys saw how bad they were without Romo.

Just to remind people, from weeks seven through nine without him the team went 1-2 and did not score more than 14 points in all three games.

Even against the Rams, the 5th worst ranked defense in the league, they couldn’t score more than 14 points. With Romo as the quarterback for the Cowboys this season, the team was much better averaging 24.7 points per game.

In the three games Romo was out, backup quarterback Brad Johnson played awful as he totaled two touchdowns, five interceptions, and a QB rating of 50.5.

Johnson played so poorly that third string quarterback Brooks Bollinger was put in the during the second half of the third game. 

Brooks Bollinger also played poorly as he had one touchdown, one interception, and a 60.2 QB rating. Even the running game felt the affect of Romo’s absence as Marion Barber in two of the three games without Romo averaged a pitiful 2.8 YPC.

Even with how bad the season went for Romo, he still had 26 touchdowns and a very good quarterback rating of 91.4 this season.

Let’s not forget that there is a very good chance that if Romo was healthy, the Cowboys probably would have won more than one out the three games Romo was out for and probably would be in the playoffs right now.

There is no doubt that Romo had  a down season compared to last year,  but the Cowboys offensive protection wasn’t as good as many had thought it was before the season as he has been hurried and knocked down constantly all season.

However, remarkably Romo has only been sacked 20 times all season in 13 games while another mobile quarterback Ben Roethlisberger, who hasn’t been getting enough criticism at all, has been sacked 46 times.

Even though Romo is known for holding on to the ball too long, he is surprisingly only sixth in the NFL in sacks given up for quarterbacks with over 300 passing attempts.

As I’ve said many times, Romo's mobility, his ability to keep plays alive, and his intuition are the key to making this Cowboys offense one of the best.

Romo has that so called “it” that can’t be taught and without him all of the great play-makers on the Cowboys become ineffective. 

I will admit that I am a fan of Tony Romo and it’s possible that I might be making a little too many excuses for him. However, I don’t know how anyone can disagree with my overall premise.

The Cowboys are lucky to have Romo and maybe the Cowboys need to bring back Drew Bledsoe or start Brad Johnson next year just to remind people.