Post by prossman on Dec 20, 2008 8:02:45 GMT -7
FWST: JFE: There’s no room to question Tony Romo’s toughness
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There’s no room to question Tony Romo’s toughness
By JENNIFER FLOYD ENGEL
jenfloyd@star-telegram.com
IRVING
— We bid farewell to a legend this evening; a lady of a certain age for whom time has been slightly unkind.
Don’t blame her. She can’t refurbish herself.
And despite the obvious age spots, Texas Stadium still has that ability to fire the imagination and immortalize moments. Years from now, when tales are all told of The Mad Bomber on Thanksgiving and Roger’s goose-bumpy farewell to Texas Stadium, I only hope we remember what we have seen from QB Tony Romo in this past 10 days.
He is why the Dallas Cowboys are alive and well, still vying for the playoffs rather than digging out from the rubble of another self-implosion. He has bounced back stronger despite punch after punch, including a rather insidious low blow to his back from you-know-who.
I realize it is popular at the moment to join the line of ex-jock media types kissing up to T.O. and pretending he is the one who has been wronged. By all means, let’s ignore how this whole stupidity started, not with an Ed Werder, not with a secret squirrel teammate but with T.O. throwing yet another of his QBs under the bus.
And how else do you categorize T.O. whining about Romo employing a "buddy system"?
Whatever legit gripes existed about Romo after his dreadful display in Pittsburgh
, and many did, did anybody really believe he was sitting back in the pocket, with whatever pass rusher Cory Procter just let through ready to kill him, thinking "Hmmmm, I wonder where my buddy Witten is?" Or better yet, purposely ignored a wide-open T.O. because he had been drawing up plays in his PJs?
OK, let me rephrase: Other than T.O. and Deion did anybody ...?
The aforementioned idiot has a way, though, of influencing locker-room opinion and many unnamed players apparently supported what basically amounted to Romo doubt. How nice of T.O. to drum this up with critics already ripping into the QB.
Like the position is not a hard enough job, especially for the Cowboys, especially after a nightmarish game such as Pittsburgh, without having to deal with an unmitigated butt like T.O. rallying the troops against you.
This is why The RHG called T.O. into his office to talk. Jason Garrett was not checking his frustration level because he found this particularly helpful but rather as a way to get him to shut his piehole.
How Romo handled him/this/everything — by ignoring T.O. and his nonsense then playing his you-know-what off against the Giants — is what saved the season, at least until 7 p.m. Or until Philly, which is the white knuckler. And by doing so, Romo displayed the exact toughness many questioned.
Bigger QBs have crumbled after drive-by T.O. backstabbings, including Donovan McNabb going all insecure in Philly. Romo just shrugged and answered with probably his guttiest game as a Cowboy.
Mentally. And physically.
It is not easy to pick yourself up after being knocked into the fetal position, which is exactly where Romo found himself Sunday against New York. There was not a person at Texas Stadium who saw him lying in the end zone, after another shot from the Giants defense, who did not think — he’s not getting up.
"No, yeah," Romo said when I asked him if he has surprised himself. "I think you prove stuff to yourself, and prove stuff to ..."
He did not finish the sentence, but he definitely proved stuff to the guys who were rallying around T.O. and his whining less than a week ago.
There is nothing particularly gutty in whining about what others could be doing better. This is why T.O. does it so well. When his game is off, it is Big Bill’s or The RHG’s. fault. It just happened to be Romo’s turn.
And he was vulnerable.
He was coming off his ugliest game of the season in Pittsburgh. The defense had played good enough to win. The offense had failed. And fault for this was heaped upon Romo — by media, by fans and by T.O.
"Across the board in the NFL, with QBs, you have to deal with it at some level but not to his. I have a lot of respect with how he embraces it all," his "buddy", Jason Witten, said. "I don’t think he allows all the stuff that goes on outside to really bother him."
Romo’s detachment is too often confused with nonchalance; a belief that losing does not bother him like others because he is not making a fool of himself screaming at coaches on the sideline or pointing to whichever Cowboy screwed up on a given play.
But it eats at him. How he played in Pittsburgh ate at him.
And having teammates line up and take sides against him had to hurt almost as much as what the Giants did to his back. Of course, he is not the first. Roger faced it. So did Troy and Danny and so many others, all of them eventually finding themselves looking up through the hole in the roof wondering, "Why ...?
The great ones picked themselves up.
They are the ones who add to the legend. T.O. is just a guy passing through who is never going to get it.
Jennifer Floyd Engel, 817-390-7760
__________________
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
There’s no room to question Tony Romo’s toughness
By JENNIFER FLOYD ENGEL
jenfloyd@star-telegram.com
IRVING
— We bid farewell to a legend this evening; a lady of a certain age for whom time has been slightly unkind.
Don’t blame her. She can’t refurbish herself.
And despite the obvious age spots, Texas Stadium still has that ability to fire the imagination and immortalize moments. Years from now, when tales are all told of The Mad Bomber on Thanksgiving and Roger’s goose-bumpy farewell to Texas Stadium, I only hope we remember what we have seen from QB Tony Romo in this past 10 days.
He is why the Dallas Cowboys are alive and well, still vying for the playoffs rather than digging out from the rubble of another self-implosion. He has bounced back stronger despite punch after punch, including a rather insidious low blow to his back from you-know-who.
I realize it is popular at the moment to join the line of ex-jock media types kissing up to T.O. and pretending he is the one who has been wronged. By all means, let’s ignore how this whole stupidity started, not with an Ed Werder, not with a secret squirrel teammate but with T.O. throwing yet another of his QBs under the bus.
And how else do you categorize T.O. whining about Romo employing a "buddy system"?
Whatever legit gripes existed about Romo after his dreadful display in Pittsburgh
, and many did, did anybody really believe he was sitting back in the pocket, with whatever pass rusher Cory Procter just let through ready to kill him, thinking "Hmmmm, I wonder where my buddy Witten is?" Or better yet, purposely ignored a wide-open T.O. because he had been drawing up plays in his PJs?
OK, let me rephrase: Other than T.O. and Deion did anybody ...?
The aforementioned idiot has a way, though, of influencing locker-room opinion and many unnamed players apparently supported what basically amounted to Romo doubt. How nice of T.O. to drum this up with critics already ripping into the QB.
Like the position is not a hard enough job, especially for the Cowboys, especially after a nightmarish game such as Pittsburgh, without having to deal with an unmitigated butt like T.O. rallying the troops against you.
This is why The RHG called T.O. into his office to talk. Jason Garrett was not checking his frustration level because he found this particularly helpful but rather as a way to get him to shut his piehole.
How Romo handled him/this/everything — by ignoring T.O. and his nonsense then playing his you-know-what off against the Giants — is what saved the season, at least until 7 p.m. Or until Philly, which is the white knuckler. And by doing so, Romo displayed the exact toughness many questioned.
Bigger QBs have crumbled after drive-by T.O. backstabbings, including Donovan McNabb going all insecure in Philly. Romo just shrugged and answered with probably his guttiest game as a Cowboy.
Mentally. And physically.
It is not easy to pick yourself up after being knocked into the fetal position, which is exactly where Romo found himself Sunday against New York. There was not a person at Texas Stadium who saw him lying in the end zone, after another shot from the Giants defense, who did not think — he’s not getting up.
"No, yeah," Romo said when I asked him if he has surprised himself. "I think you prove stuff to yourself, and prove stuff to ..."
He did not finish the sentence, but he definitely proved stuff to the guys who were rallying around T.O. and his whining less than a week ago.
There is nothing particularly gutty in whining about what others could be doing better. This is why T.O. does it so well. When his game is off, it is Big Bill’s or The RHG’s. fault. It just happened to be Romo’s turn.
And he was vulnerable.
He was coming off his ugliest game of the season in Pittsburgh. The defense had played good enough to win. The offense had failed. And fault for this was heaped upon Romo — by media, by fans and by T.O.
"Across the board in the NFL, with QBs, you have to deal with it at some level but not to his. I have a lot of respect with how he embraces it all," his "buddy", Jason Witten, said. "I don’t think he allows all the stuff that goes on outside to really bother him."
Romo’s detachment is too often confused with nonchalance; a belief that losing does not bother him like others because he is not making a fool of himself screaming at coaches on the sideline or pointing to whichever Cowboy screwed up on a given play.
But it eats at him. How he played in Pittsburgh ate at him.
And having teammates line up and take sides against him had to hurt almost as much as what the Giants did to his back. Of course, he is not the first. Roger faced it. So did Troy and Danny and so many others, all of them eventually finding themselves looking up through the hole in the roof wondering, "Why ...?
The great ones picked themselves up.
They are the ones who add to the legend. T.O. is just a guy passing through who is never going to get it.
Jennifer Floyd Engel, 817-390-7760
__________________