Tony Romo gave a classy speech earlier this week in which he acknowledged his new and unfamiliar role with the Dallas Cowboys, but that does not mean the veteran quarterback went down without a fight.
In his weekly column for The MMQB, Albert Breer revealed that Romo actually went to Cowboys management after he had been cleared medically and asked for a chance to earn his starting job back in practice. While those who witnessed the sessions say Romo did a perfect job of playing Ben Roethlisberger (the Cowboys’ Week 10 opponent) in practice, there was simply nothing he could do to convince the team to bench Dak Prescott.
When Breer told Cowboys chief operating officer Stephen Jones that he had heard Romo asked for a chance to win his job back, Jones issued no denials.
“Tony’s smart. He’s very bright,” Jones said. “And so when he came out and said it, in the end, I don’t think it took him long to figure that wouldn’t be a great thing for the team. We’ve got a good thing, and no one wants Dak looking over his shoulder.”
Romo sees that the Cowboys are 8-1 and have not lost since Week 1, but as a competitor he almost certainly believes he could have enjoyed the same success if he was healthy. Asking for a shot to earn his job back is much more about confidence than selfishness.
“He’s dying to get out there. And we talked all offseason, he’s never been this fired up about a team, he couldn’t wait,” Jones said. “And now to see it work like he thought it would, and the team doing something special, and to want back in, that’s not selfish. It’s just hard. He’s tremendously unselfish, because he understands it.”
Romo was as graceful as you could ask a 36-year-old veteran to be when he said Tuesday that Prescott has earned the right to be the starter. You can see the video of Romo’s emotional speech here.
It’s easy to write Romo off and assume he will never play for the Cowboys again, but what if Prescott suddenly begins to struggle? Are the Cowboys willing to let their best team in years lose its mojo if opposing teams start figuring out how to get the best of Prescott? That’s a problem the Jones family hopes it never has to address.
