Now that it’s been a day or two since Tony Romo said he is done with football, we can now evaluate his career. Late on Tuesday Romo signed with CBS, replacing Phil Simms and will now work alongside Jim Nantz.
First off, happy for Tony he’s a smart well-spoken guy and will do just great in his new position as a commentator. Secondly, thank fucking god Phil Simms is gone! Halleluiah! Man, did he sound like a fucking idiot “Well Jim he played it exactly right except you gotta make the tackle” Yeah Phil? Sorry I digress, I digress. Now, this won’t be your average Tony Romo “face value” piece, we’re going to take a deeper look at Romo, his surrounding parts, and make the case why he deserves to be in the Hall of Fame. Yup, I said it.
Ah, “Tony Romo, he sucks!” How many times have I heard this from people and mainly Giant fans? Way too many. Well let’s get one thing fucking straight here, he certainly doesn’t suck. In FACT, Mr. Romo has the FOURTH best passer rating of ALL TIME. Yes, this is a factual as I call them. Look it up if you don’t believe me. At 97.1 he trails only Tom Brady, Russel Wilson, and Aaron Rodgers. Care to take a stab at what Mr. Golden Boy’s Tom Brady’s is? Oh, it’s 97.2, quite impressive, but only 0.1 above Tony fucking Romo! So let me get this straight…Brady is the greatest of all time no question and Romo sucks? Brady is amazing, no doubt. But you’re telling me, Romo, essentially has identical numbers to “the GOAT” and he doesn’t even get consideration for the Hall of Fame? Fucking shit is that. Brady has the Superbowl’s of course but also the greatest coach of all time and amazing defenses.
I’m not here to rain on the Pats’ parade though, I’m here to make my case for Romo. So to do this, I am going to rain on everyone’s parade in a different light. The quarterback has NOWHERE near as much influence on the overall outcome of a game as you think. So football is broken into two main sides correct? Offense and defense, and for the most part that’s a pretty even split. So we’ll call it 50-50 right away he can’t control more than half the game. Then you run the ball and throw it nearly the same amount. I know, I know its a pass first league. Let’s call it 60-40 okay? SO 60 percent of 50 is 30. So that means we’re saying the quarterback is responsible for the entire passing game, discounting the receivers and line. So 30 percent would be the absolute MOST a Qb can affect the game.
Now hold your horses now cuz I’m throwing you a curve, ya still with me? We didn’t even include things such as coaching and special teams. Coaching and special teams combined is HUGE, that’s a solid 1/3 of the game for sure. So that means the offense is only 33 percent of the pie, and 60 percent of 33 is 19.8. For the sake of the conversation, we’ll round it up to 20 so 20 percent AT MOST the Qb can affect. Now you’re probably thinking oh no you forgot he’s a game manager they call the plays! Well like I said let’s not act like the fucking lineman, running backs, tight ends, and wide receivers contribute zero to the passing attack either. So let’s solve this like a math equation and say those two factors cross one another out. So yup 20 percent is the most a quarterback can influence the outcome of the game.
That’s the reason Dan Marino doesn’t have a Superbowl and Terry Bradshaw has fucking four. Bradshaw was horrendous, contrary to the common belief by the public. His passer rating is 70.9 and he has four super bowls. Rex Grossman, Derek Anderson, Mark Sanchez, Jake Plummer, Josh Freeman, Josh McCown, Matt Cassel, and Ryan Fitzpatrick. All those players share one thing in common, they have a better rating then Bradshaw. Not saying they’re better but this is an example of how that other 80 percent of intangibles can swing the fate and legacy of a quarterback. You can be just a regular backup, spot starter or even a four time super bowl champion like Mr. Bradshaw.
So now let’s look at some of Tony’s intangibles and surrounding parts that he really couldn’t control. Let’s start at the top with Jerry Jones. Oh jerry, you dog you. You self-centered, obnoxious, greedy owner you. Jerry is classless we can go to the way he handled Jimmy Johnson, the Dak-Romo situation this year, or the TO saga. Jerry just loves the noise and his money, not the winning. You know it, I know it, we all know it.
Now for Tony’s coaches, he had Bill Parcells, Wade Phillips, and Jason Garrett. He only had Bill for one year when he took over for Drew Bledsoe so that barely counts. Phillips isn’t awful but he’s not very good. He made it to the divisional round of playoffs twice with Cowboys, with some help from Romo, other then that hasn’t made it past the Wild-Card game with any other team. Jason Garrett. LOL. If you think he’s a good coach then you probably haven’t made it this far in the article.
Now let’s look at a huge portion of the game that we know Tony can’t control and that is defense. Let’s look at the Cowboys defense year by year while he was under center, shall we! Romo didn’t start this year so we will look at the defense from 2006-2015 in sequential order. The ranks by points go 20th, 13th, 20th, 2nd, 31st, 16th, 24th, 26th, 15th, 16th. So one year, which was an anomaly, he had a defense in the top 12. That means 9 of his 10 years starting his defense was 13th or worse. If the one outlier is taken out his defensive rank on average was 20th, not exactly strong. For shits and giggles, Brady had a top ten defense in all but THREE of his 15 seasons. Yup, 12 out of his 15 playing years he had a top ten defense, Romo 1 for 10. I respectfully rest my case on the defensive side and coaching portion of the game for that matter.
Now for the last portion of the game that I am going to take a look at will be his run game. Once again he didn’t play this year so we will go in sequential order from 2006-2015 go 13th, 17th, 20th, 6th, 15th, 17th, 31st, 25th, 2nd, and 9th. (Also reminder he played four games in 2015) The averages come out to 14th and as you can see was very mediocre every year. So his run game wasn’t terrible, didn’t help or hurt him really.
So there are reasons he hasn’t exactly flourished in the postseason, shitty owner, questionable coaches, sub-par defense, a mediocre run game, and a non-catch that we know was. Dez caught that ball and Dallas was robbed. But what about the clutch factor which he “doesn’t have”? Oh, this one is really a knee slapper if I’ve ever seen one. Romo is fucking nasty in the fourth quarter, believe me. Don’t? Well over the last ten years Romo is FIRST in the NFL in the fourth quarter and overtime passer rating wise.
Of the past decade (2007-2016), Tony Romo leads all of 71 qualifying QBs in 4th Quarter and Overtime Passer Rating. #NotClutch pic.twitter.com/gYX4OVEHVR
— Scott Barrett (@ScottBarrettDFB) April 4, 2017
As you can see he compiled 76 touchdowns and 26 interceptions and a 103.5 rating! That’s right he’s not worse or even the same he’s fucking better in the fourth! 8 points better! Better than Brady, Rodgers, Roethlisberger, and both the Mannings. Moral of the story is, don’t let the media, a few bad plays, or a lack of knowledge derail you from the truth. Numbers never lie. He is first in passing touchdowns and yards in Cowboys history ahead of both Aikman and Staubach. Tony Romo is a Hall of Famer and I just proved it to you even though you didn’t think it was possible. How bout dattttt.
-Sulls Out
