First and foremost, what a WONDERFUL time at the game yesterday. I absolutely was not expecting us to keep it THAT competitive. I'm glad to have witnessed the best game of the NFL season thus far in person. Had an absolute blast with my first time at the Death Star.
Onto the game, I'm not even gonna bother with the 'Week In Review' thread because there's too many idiots in there comparing Scahub, and Cutler to Romo
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Romo is not absolved from any criticism. However, to put the loss squarely on his shoulders is laughable. I know you are all still in shock at the loss considering how close we came, but there's many things to note here.
"Romo does this all the time." Really? Is that so? Because Romo has 18 4th Quarter comebacks in his NFL career, 5 of which came last year. But lemme guess NT, those don't count? Yesterday was only considered a big game because we lost. Had Romo pulled off the win, it would have been swept under the rug with the "Welll well lets see him do it in the playoffs" rebuttal. The list of times Romo has thrown a "game ending INT/fumble" is actually only in the single digits. I'll point em out for you:
Seattle botched snap (even though this isn't him playing QB, but NT is dumb so we'll give em that one)
2011 week 1 against the Jets (although Dez ran the wrong route but whatever, I'll give you that one)
2012 final week at Fed Ex (middle LB game up the middle untouched, but it was a poor decision regardless).
Giants INT in the playoffs was a 4th and 17 with no time left on the clock and was essentially a hailmary. You can't count that as a "game ending pic" unless we're gonna always say someone chokes when they chuck up a prayer at the end of the game. Then again, people will undoubtly put it on Romo anyways just because
I could go and post that in the Week in Review thread but what's the point? We already know what the perception is and the casual fan doesn't care about the truth. Lebron got the same treatment in Cleveland. Now, in no way am I comparing the talent level of Romo to Lebron, but what I am stating is that at some point, like Lebron, Romo needs help. Perfect example: Yesterday, Colin Kaepnerick was 6/15 and had thrown incomplete passes for almost 2 quarters and did not complete another pass until the third quarter. However, San Fran was up by 3 possessions. Now ask yourself this: Do you honestly believe that Romo could EVER be 6/15 missing multiple receivers and not completing another pass until the 3rd quarter and the Cowboys still be up by 3 possessions?
Romo played one of the best games any QB has ever played. Watching him in person was amazing. He was literally houdini back there making something out of nothing. What has flown complettely under the radar is the end of the the 1st half when Romo ducked, weaved, dodged lineman, and found terrence williams deep which led to a FG and had us only down 28-20. HUGE momentum gainer for us that again, its Romo so no one gives him credit.
The last play: Go back and watch the tape. Romo had a 300lb Lineman on his foot and Ron Leary grazing across his face, preventing him from stepping into that throw which led to the INT, WHICH BTW, was a HELL of a play by that LBer.
Again, not absolving Romo from any criticism, but to put the blame all on him is ridiculous. The defense has given up 1100 yards in two games. The defense has not had a sack since the first quarter of the Chargers game. The defense has given up 64 points in 6 quarters. Rivers/Manning have a combined 89% completion percentage. When your QB throws for 500 yards, 5 Tds, has a QB rating of 140.9 and you STILL lose, the problem is not the QB and has never been. What about the oline being clutch? Where is Demarcus Ware? No seriously, WHERE IS HE? Have you seen him? It's so easy to just put the blame on Romo. At the end of the day, this is what it is. He has to win a chip for people to leave him alone, just like Lebron.
Fellas, the defense is a huge problem. We are on pace to give up 45 TDs this year and we are slowly on pace of giving up a total of 5500 yards, an NFL franchise record. The defense should be thanking the football Gods for that Romo INT being used as deodorant to cover up their stink.
The beauty of all this is that the NFC East is loaded with teams with garbage defenses. The problem is that we tend to play down to the level of our competition. The game plan we implemented yesterday should be used throughout the rest of the season. We have to outscore opponents and we are more than capable.
P.S. The reason Romo was able to throw down the field more and looked more like the "old Romo" is that, according to Ed Werder, his back and ribs are completely healed.
terrible
