Barry Church thinks there’s a ’60 percent chance’ Tony Romo returns

As someone who played seven seasons with Tony Romo in Dallas, former Cowboys safety Barry Church knows the now-retired quarterback better than most. So what does Church think about the possibility of Romo returning to the field at some point?

He considers it likely.

In an interview with TMZ this week, Church said he believes there’s a good chance we have not seen the last of Romo on the gridiron.

“Knowing him, I would give that a 60 percent chance that he would step out of the broadcast booth and come back to the field,” Church said. “Right now he’s thinking, ‘Man, I’ve played 14 years and been injured and all that stuff, I think I’m just gonna call it a day.’ But that competitive itch you get from playing football, it doesn’t go away. I think it just heightens more once you leave the game. I think that itch might get to him.”

Part of the reason Church believes Romo will get the urge to come back is that the 36-year-old looked so sharp in practice last season.

“The guy was ripping the ball left and right,” Church said. “He looked like he had a lot of juice left in the tank. For him to make that call to go to CBS, I was really, really shocked.”

If you’ve heard the way Romo has described his retirement, you might think he is planning to strap the pads back on at some point. Still, it seems unlikely that CBS would have replaced Phil Simms with Romo on its top broadcast team if the network wasn’t confident Romo was there to stay.