Larry Brown Sports

Tony Romo signed a massive contract extension worth $108 million with the Dallas Cowboys last week. Considering he has only one playoff win in seven seasons as a starting quarterback, many people (see: McNabb, Donovan) feel that Jerry Jones gave Romo way more money than he is worth.

None of that matters when the Cowboys kick off their 2013 season, and linebacker DeMarcus Ware reminded us of that during an interview with Sirius XM’s NFL Radio on Thursday.

“I feel like everybody is deserving to whatever is given to him, but at the end of the day, to me it’s put up or shut up,” Ware said when asked about Romo’s contract, via The Dallas Morning News. “I’m just being straight-up honest with you. Get out there and be productive, and that’s with any player. Whatever they get, they’re deserving of it. You just got to get out there and play and I know he can be and will be the quarterback that is going to be the quarterback that is going to take us to the next level.”

Statistically, Romo is one of the better quarterbacks in the NFL. He makes mistakes at critical times, but his QB rating has never been lower than 90.5 in a single season. Quarterbacks are at such a premium that you have to spend $55 million in guaranteed money to keep one of them — even if that person has been a failure in the clutch.

Ware has defended Romo as a leader in the past, but you could argue that the Cowboys quarterback is going to be under more pressure than ever going forward. If he continues to make poor decisions like this with the game on the line, Romo’s contract will start to look pretty horrible to his teammates and the fans.

DeMarcus Ware is one of the premier sack artists in the NFL. He has amassed 99.5 sacks over his seven-year career, and his career-high is 20, which is 2.5 sacks shy of Michael Strahan’s single-season record.

Jared Allen had 22 sacks for the Vikings last season and recently said he thinks 25 sacks is possible. He even cited Ware as a player who could do it.

“With that coming from Jared Allen, who had 22 last year, the sky’s the limit,” Ware told Jon Machota of the Dallas Morning News in response. “I’ll also flip it back on him, and say, he can do the same thing, and also, Jason Babin. They’re playing really well. But it’s all about how the season goes. If it’s more of a passing season, we’re probably going to have more sacks.”

More passing plays in the NFL has created more opportunities for sacks, but I still think 25 is going to be really difficult to reach unless the NFL goes to an 18-game season. Both Ware and Allen were on pace to break Strahan’s record midway through last season, but they each slowed down and finished short of the mark. As soon as a player starts tearing it up with a lot of sacks, opposing teams take notice and gameplan to stop that player more than before. That makes it more difficult to break the mark, even for a guy with skills like Lawrence Taylor.

Given the rivalry that has developed between the Giants and Cowboys over the years, you will rarely hear a player from one team complimenting the other. The two teams don’t like each other, and that is evident each time they square off in the regular season. However, DeMarcus Ware was recently asked what the Cowboys need to do in order to take the next step as a team, and he immediately brought up Dallas’ NFC East rival.

“I really don’t like to talk about the Giants, but their team camaraderie, where they had the adversity right at the beginning, and then all of a sudden, it really kicked in,” Ware said on NBC Sports Talk this week. “The last maybe eight games, the blood sweat and tears really kicked in, the guys started feeling it and they had that swagger about themselves.”

“It’s not on the coaches at all, it’s all about the players. It’s just being there for the man beside you.”

While Cowboys fans will likely cringe at the sound of one of their stars complimenting the G-Men, the truth of the matter is every team wants to be more like the Giants. They just won the Super Bowl, so whatever they did worked.

Moreover, leadership is clearly an issue within the Cowboys locker room. When players on your team can’t even name who the leaders are, something’s missing. The Cowboys can certainly take a page out of the Giants’ book when it comes to stepping up and leading your teammates on and off the field.

When Rod Tidwell was hoping to make it big in the NFL, scoring an endorsement deal with Depends was not on his list of dreams. But that doesn’t mean some of today’s star players are too cool to endorse an adult diaper.

Wes Welker, DeMarcus Ware, and Clay Matthews all participated in a Depends commercial to promote the “Real Fit for men” diaper. Depends is running a “Great American Try-on” campaign, and as Adam Rank of NFL.com points out, the campaign is in support of the V Foundation.

It’s pretty cool that these guys are risking ridicule to endorse a product that is typically considered embarrassing. Now that these studs are wearing diapers, how could anyone be too embarrassed to give them a try?

The NFL regular season ended less than two months ago, but the most telling sign of the Cowboys’ offseason may have already come. Last week, defensive end Jason Hatcher spoke about how he wished Dallas had a true leader in their locker room. He said the Cowboys lack a player like Ray Lewis who everyone in the locker room listens to, which is obviously a problem for the team. DeMarcus Ware disagrees with Hatcher.

“The thing is on our team, there’s not a guy who is just a straight up, solitary leader,” Ware said according to the Dallas Morning News. “I think it comes as a whole. You got to look at it as we have (Tony) Romo, we have (Jason) Witten, you have me, Bradie James, Sean Lee. Everybody has their role and they take on that leadership role when it’s needed. Every team doesn’t need just a one-time guy who is like the leader of that team. If everybody is checking everybody, that’s all you need. There comes a time to step up when it’s time to step up and get the job done.”

Ware was one of the names that came to mind when I read Hatcher’s comments. The fact that a player on defense didn’t consider him to be a leader surprised me a bit. The guys DeMarcus mentioned may have leadership qualities, but Hatcher’s comments make it pretty obvious that the team lacks a true leader.

If a team has a leader, everybody knows about it. It’s not something that needs to be explained. If Hatcher says the team has no leaders, than the Cowboys have no leader who is vocal enough to make an impression. That’s a clear sign that someone needs to step up and fulfill that role in 2012.

Before Eli Manning threw two touchdown passes in the final five minutes to lead the Giants to a comeback victory over the Cowboys Sunday, DeMarcus Ware had already praised the Giants quarterback. In an interview with Sunday Night Football, Ware called Eli a “sleeper” who is in the same category as Peyton and Tom Brady. The Cowboys linebacker feels like the only thing Eli is missing is the same hype.

“Eli Manning is a sleeper,” he told Michelle Tafoya. “He’s one of those guys where he’s up there with Tom Brady or Peyton Manning, he just doesn’t have that aura of those quarterbacks.

“When I was looking at the stats, he’s right up there with those quarterbacks. When it’s crunch time, the fourth quarter, that’s when he’s making his plays and getting his teams wins.

“He’s up there with those elite quarterbacks, they’re just not giving him his credit,” Ware said.

Ware’s comments foreshadowed Sunday’s finish. Eli made big plays in the fourth quarter to lead the Giants to a comeback win. I still don’t think Eli Manning is in the same class of quarterbacks as Aaron Rodgers, Drew Brees, and Tom Brady, but he’s extremely capable, and he’s in a class below them, despite what he feels.

Here’s a video of the clip from the interview:

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Trash talk between the Cowboys and Giants is certainly not a new phenomenon. There is no love lost between the two teams, who always seem to put on a show when they get together during the season. One player who is particularly vocal about his hatred for the Cowboys is Justin Tuck. He has been known to trash the new Jerry Land and stress how much he hates Dallas. DeMarcus Ware has an interesting theory on why Tuck feels the need to do that.

“He says that because maybe he wants to play here,” Ware told reporters on Wednesday according to the NY Daily News. “Everybody wants to play for the Cowboys. If I wasn’t playing for the Cowboys I would call it that, too, because I want to play for them.”

I’m going to have to respectfully disagree with DeMarcus on this one.  Hating your rival is hating your rival.  When you play for the team that won a Super Bowl in 2007 and insist you hate the team that has not won one since the 1990s, envy probably isn’t the issue.

That being said, Dallas is certainly in a better position than New York at the moment.  The Giants are 6-6 and traveling to Dallas to take on the 7-5 Cowboys.  Having lost four straight, the G-Men would be able to write off the remainder of their season if they lose on Sunday night.

Chest bump to Pro Football Talk for the story.