The Dallas Cowboys have become notorious in recent years for making costly mistakes with the game on the line. Tony Romo has consistently established himself as a quarterback who can never seem to win the big game, but he and his teammates have shown some uncharacteristic resiliency this season.
As John Machota of the Dallas Morning News pointed out, the Cowboys have scored an average of 15.6 points in the fourth quarter over their last six games. They have outscored their opponents 94-39 in the fourth quarter during that 5-1 stretch. Those clutch performances have led to a surge in confidence for Romo and company.
“Really, it’s just we’ve gotten to a point where we’re a mentally tough football team,” Romo said Wednesday. “In saying that, I believe when I step on the field in the fourth quarter, if we’re within 10-14 points, we’re going to find a way to win the ballgame.
“And we’ve been down, I don’t know, five times, six times this year and we’ve consistently come back and put ourselves in position. We’ve had a couple other ones where we could have come back in eight or nine of them, really. That’s just our mentality of what our football team believes late in football games. And that’s helped us.”
At the moment, it would be tough to argue with Romo. As we all know, however, none of that matters if the Cowboys miss the playoffs. And if they make the playoffs and fall on their faces yet again, it still doesn’t matter. Romo has been criticized for his play in the clutch throughout his entire career and has made plenty of poor decisions to warrant the criticism. At this point, the critics aren’t going to stand down until he leads Dallas to a Super Bowl.
H/T Pro Football Talk
Photo credit: Mark J. Rebilas-US PRESSWIRE
